Wayward Ransom
by artisanrox
Summary: Ban x OC. An explanation of the betrayal by the Daimyo that used the Seven for battle. Bankotsu must stay away from heaven's gate so he may reclaim his soul. COMPLETE.
1. Chapter 1

Author's notes:

Hey there! Unlike my other two stories (featuring Final Fantasy 7 characters), I'm calling this rating R to an easy M for violence, nudity and serious potty-mouthedness. Hey, it IS Bankotsu, what the heck do you expect? Think "God of War", Inuyasha style. If I missed some formatting, I apologize.:)

SO this story is not for kids. It's not for kids. Did I mention it's not for kids? You have been warned.

I have many credits:

--Various song sites.

--Info on the Sanzu river:"Complete guide to Anachronisms in Samurai Champloo" by Paula O'Keefe.

--My Japanese aunt (through marriage, now deceased) who one of the main characters is named after. It won't be hard to guess which one. She always tried to get me to taste sushi when I was a little kid and I was afraid of it because I was a dumb kid. She'd be so proud of me now!

UPDATE 12/17/05--song lyrics from this chapter removed.

Also, I have to disclaim myself and say I don't own Inuyasha or anything in the Inuyasha universe, Rumiko Takahashi and Sunrise do.Which means I don't own Bankotsu either. (makes grumbly sounds.)

**Wayward Ransom, Chapter 1.**

_Heat, blood, sweat, steel. Struggling like a rabid animal. Poison, vertigo. Gasping for air as he fought to rival hell, air to curse the ten pairs of dirty hands that held him down on the step in front of the cottage. Blackest hair, tangled and unbraided, trailing down the singular step, to meet the flow of blood from impaled knives. A face, once darkened with a deep golden suntan, now pale and flushed with the sickness carried by the arrow. Arms pin behind him, held in place by tight cords of an unknown material. Demonic material? Possibly. _

_The single arrow piercing the back of a leg. What a terribly dishonerable thing to do...hit a warrior as his back is turned, occupied with someone else. This is not a match, or a fight...it is the culmination of a hunt. A successful hunt. A trap._

_Whispering chilling curses under his breath, teeth firmly clenched, stripped of armor and shoulders bared, writhing, he hisses one last time at only man he could see through narrowing vision, the man who confiscated the mighty banryuu, and with the help of others, handed it off in turn to others, and who now holds the cold katana blade to his hot neck. "You!...One thousand! One thousand!"_

_Another man steps forward, his strong fist clenches the deepest black hair and pulls it back, craning his neck backward over the step. He whispers insults into his prey's ear; no matter, they can't be heard anyway. Too much pain and agony and betrayal. The horrible sight he saw in the cottage, repeating itself, going around and around and around in his head, in a death embrace, dancing with the vertigo. Too much!_

_The katana is raised. _

_The katana falls._

_The man crouching at the crown of his beautiful victim's head, his hand hidden under a mass of once-luxurious hair, is more than pleased._

_"The young demon is dead."_

Memories always tended to creep into his mind, no matter what he did. Terrible memories were all that were left right now.

Coming to consiousness, and trying to push aside the horrible memories leading up to his own execution, his deep, searing cobalt eyes opened just enough to see a pair of geta, a pole rhythmically dipping in and out of his line of sight, and a bright, sunny-looking shoreline in the far distance.

He had just been battling the half-demon. He could have swore that was only a few moments ago, but estimated due to his situation, that he was here in this awful, humid, reddish place a lot longer than that. He closed his eyes, breathed silently through gritted teeth, and ignored his body's screams for comfort. He could barely make out some sparse conversation...sparse, but useful.

The two men standing over him watched the distant shore approach. One was clearly an armed guard, holding a short, spear pointed staff; the other a spindly, ancient-seeming warrior, pushing the raft forward through the water with a pole, the pole hissing anew every time it touched the liquid. The older man, in all other cases, really didn't need an escort or a bodyguard; usually he could take strongheaded passengers down himself with his skill despite his gaunt appearance. He had carried hundreds of wayward passengers across the Sanzu alone with some simple rope and a threat. But he was forewarned...this one was different. This one was trouble, and the many bindings that attached his body to the floor of the raft spoke volumes as to how much trouble there could be. Even worse than some of the others before him who didn't reach the other side quite peacefully. It was fair warning enough that the ones that were the most trouble seemed to know this man. Nonetheless the old ferryman made sure they all crossed, whether they liked it or not.

The armed guard contemplated their sleeping, well-bound passenger. He had been stripped of all his armor, even of his shin and forearm guards. He was left only with a pure white gi, the shirt wide open, so no unseen magic or weapons arrived with the prisoner. The gi stood in sharp, almost blinding contrast to his dark, tanned skin and hair, and made both appear even darker than they actually were. His long jet-black braid ran in a river, from his turned head, over his left arm and well onto the floor of the aeons-old wooden raft. His arms were bound above his head by individual, thick metal cuffs, which were firmly soldered by one additional, thick link each onto a low metal projection coming out of the floor of the raft, which left no leeway to even sit upright. He had arrived from the world of the living, but due to his own willfulness, he would have to be taken by force to the other side of the Sanzu...the permanent world of the dead for all those who touch its shore.

"But what kind of person would not want to go to the other side? What kind of person wouldn't want to rest eternally? What you...and I...what we are doing is a service to them, in my eyes."

The older man sighed. The pole hissed softly as he spoke. "Sometimes children have to have good decisions made for them; this one is no different. But I've heard of many different reasons why they end up so. Some never receive the proper ceremonies. Those are the most cooperative. The more difficult ones do not appear instantly on the other side after death because are afraid of the unknown. Some have died by means too violent to make the crossing easy on themselves. Some are just evil, and power-hungry, and desire to try and take back all they realize they could not have in death."

"Where does this one fit in?"

"That is unknown to me. It doesn't matter to me anyway; I simply do my service and ask no questions."

"That's a good philosophy. In fact, I should...and will...adopt it as my own!"

Though the destination shore was still quite a distance away, it started to envelop the raft in the most faint of whitish light, and in a sense of calmness and comfort...in utter contrast to the hellish, tropical heat exuded by the opposite shore of the river...the shore of the living. Their service for this individual was coming to a close, and was suprisingly, rather uneventful.


	2. Chapter 2

12/17/05--Authoress's notes: Believe it or not, I still don't own Inuyasha or anything in the Inuyasha universe. I just like playing with the Shichinintai.

**Wayward Ransom, Chapter 2.**

_Sanzu...so that's where I am...can't...touch the shore..._

The older man waved a finger at their prisoner, and spoke to the armed, younger man. "You, when we dock, undo the cuffs. I'll give you the keys when we get there. I'll undo the strands."

The younger man nodded silently.

The three of them floated steadily toward the other side. As the cobwebs cleared from Bankotsu's head, and the raft got closer to its destination, he opened his eyes again, and over his bound arm, could see the shoreline they were approaching was, indeed, gorgeous. An overwhelming sense of peace welled from within...a feeling he hadn't experienced for a long, long time. He saw more clearly the stunning white buildings, the exotic flowers, and finely crafted tiny bridges that provided walkways across perfectly clear, lily-lined waterways.

He remembered the myths about the Sanzu he heard here and there as a child and as a young man. The dead, assuming conditions were right, supposedly lived a life of peace and luxury in a place like this. Wounds were healed, questions were answered, family reunited.

_Huh. Good to finally know the old storytellers weren't bullshitting me_, he thought. Sometimes he wanted to believe such a place existed, but most often, pushed it out of his head due to simply not being able to comprehend it all. Why should the afterlife be any different than living? Why should it "be" at all? No matter. _Something _better existed for people and that's all that mattered. _Well deserved...after all the hell and trouble some go through_, he thought, eyes narrowing.

The edge of the water was a busy place. Strangers appeared out of nowhere on the shore...the young, the old, men, women, children. There must have been hundreds of people. All these were people who have, in the few moments before they appeared, passed away and were going to stay in this place so their soul could rest. Nothing could bring them back...not a jewel shard, not a spell, not even demonic power. To touch the shore was to never go back.

Among the many, many people he saw on the shore in the distance, two figures intrigued him.

A gentle-looking, tall, attractive man in a simple grey kimono, one arm fading to white, the other arm fading to black. A slightly shorter woman in a lovely pink kimono, decorated with a delicate pattern of cherry blossoms.

No, wait...a _man_ ...in a lovely pink kimono, decorated with cherry blossoms.

They were here already.

His brothers in life and in death, Jakotsu and Suikotsu, were here...talking to one another, seemingly peacefully, on the shore. Jakotsu had his body and face turned toward the acidic water from which the white shore emerged. Turned, in fact, right towards the raft that Bankotsu was imprisoned, and inched closer to the shore with every polestroke the old man made. His hand seemingly uselessly shielding his wide eyes, his face in a broad, infectious smile as he scanned the shore left and right.

"How _WONDERFUL_ of you to be waiting here for me, brother! When does the party start?"

"Not technically until all of us are here."

"Oooo, gosh. I won't even _THINK_ of beginning to celebrate until Big Brother shows up!"

"He eventually will. We were all destined to come here." Suikotsu scanned the shoreline, waiting for the same thing to appear as his comrade. He looked puzzled for an instant. "Quite a different view considering how uncomfortable it was crossing the Sanzu in the first place. Strangely I can't see anything from this end...no rafts, no ships, nothing."

"Oh, pfffft." Jakotsu waved a hand at the other man. "You know I love you to _pieces_ ...but you always make everything so much harder than it should be." Jakotsu simply showed up on the shore without passing over the hellish waterway...possibly the only one out of all of them to do so without an escorted raft.

"The time for that is over. Now that I'm here, I won't need someone to bullwhip me into behaving." Suikotsu looked down at his now clawless hands. He found comfort knowing that that part of himself that was thirsty for childrens' blood...vanished...when he touched the sands they were now conversing. If he knew he would be so healed, he would have never put up such a fight on the way over here. "I can finally walk on my own now. I have a sense of balance I never had before. He was the only one I ever had to keep me in check. The 'doctor' couldn't bring himself to fight for anything he believed in. Then there was the rage...the rage would overcome me when I desperately needed to not fight. Battle was one thing...but after the battle was over, so was he, and beat it into my head over and over when it was time to get a grip on myself and stop. One of the many things I learned from him, in retrospect. None of us were ever asked to walk aside of him; he knew he could do it all himself. We all even changed our names to match his; not the other way around. But I think each of us were lost, had nowhere else to go. And each of us needed a _sensei _to bring us to ourselves. Our brother was that man."

Suikotsu and Jakotsu looked at each other contemplatively. Suikotsu spoke again. "Balance. Peace. It's all possible now. It never was before."

Jakotsu smiled. Peace was possible here. He turned back excitedly towards the end of the shore. "So when IS he going to get here?"

"In time he will. Everyone will.. And we won't be separated or in danger of our lives here. We can truly live at peace for once. We can give ourselves new names. We can write ourselves new histories, now that we know the reasons behind the old ones."

"I'll wait for him here, just like you waited for me." Jakotsu spoke with a smile, and one eye closed. "Don't you even _think_ of starting_anything_ without us."

With that, the taller man departed, walking towards the glistening white buildings.

Jakotsu was left on the shore by himself, smiling even more broadly than before. "I hope that whatever you're doing, and where ever you are, Big Brother, you're having a total _blast_ doing it."

Bankotsu could now clearly see Jakotsu standing on the shore, and Suikotsu walking away. He longingly drank in the sight of his comrades. He drew in enough air through his teeth to be able to barely whisper. "Jakotsu...Sui...kotsu..."


	3. Chapter 3

12/17/05--Authoress's notes: Adding a disclaimer to every chapter of twenty chapters' worth of writing is a pain in the ass. But I guess if I don't want my story pulled or anything, oh well!

Disclaimer: Believe it or not, I still don't own Inuyasha or anything in the Inuyasha universe. I just like playing with the Shichinintai.

**Wayward Ransom, chapter 3.**

With every polestroke by the old ferryman, Bankotsu's soft cries became louder, more desperate. "Jakotsu...JAKOTSU! JAKOTSU!" He found a deep inner strength from seeing his friends and fellow warriors again.

Oddly, his comrade wasn't answering him; in fact he acted like he didn't see the raft approaching yet. Bankotsu figured he was still out of hearing and sight range...as they still were a distance away. He himself knew his two brothers were discussing something, but couldn't hear anything. And maybe the waters, or the noises from all the people on the busy bank and beyond it kept him from hearing anything that was very far away from shore. Additionally there could have been a glare...or maybe the red mist that barely allowed him to recognize his brothers at first also prevented Jakotsu from seeing anything at all.

Unconsiously, he started pulling on the heavy metal shackles that encircled his wrists, and tried to break himself from the strange, steely filaments that seemed buried in the flesh of his back and legs, keeping the rest of his body attached to the floor of the raft.

Seeing their passenger was unwilling to keep quiet, the heavily armed young man used the blunt edge of his weapon to smack him on the side of the head. "Shut up. You'll be there soon enough."

Instead of keeping him quiet, the light hit only made him furious. Analyzing the situation with the strength his fury and also seeing his friends gave him, he found it interesting that they would take him over to the opposite shore in such a heavily bound fashion. T_hey WANT me to go there,_ he thought._They don't want me to have control of this raft. Well...we'll see about that. I will decide where and how I leave this raft._

Bankotsu again started pulling hard on the metal cuffs, twisting them and hoping to break them by stressing a weak spot.

The young man raised his spear high in the air, one hand on the shaft, the other on the end nearest to him for added leverage, aiming straight for the prisoner's heart. He spoke to the old ferryman. "So this one would be trouble after all! I'll just have to knock him out again so we can drag him ashore. He'll have no trouble there, and can get completely healed the instant he lands."

In the background, toward the front of the raft, the ferryman quickened the rhythm of his poling.

Down came the spear.

Using the same strength that made others regard him as a living demon while he was alive, Bankotsu managed to shatter the ring attaching the cuff around his left wrist to the metal base on the deck. In a split second it popped off, sending pieces flying through the air and over all four of the unwalled edges of the wooden ferry. When the pieces fell in the watery liquid, they hissed and smoked angrily as they sank like pebbles to the bottom of the channel in which the raft floated. The metal that still encased his wrist was a bit scarred from the metal flying away, but nonetheless was still firmly encircling it, and he'd need the keys to remove it.

In a flash, Bankotsu had the shaft of the pole in his free left hand, millimeters away from breaking the skin covering his sternum. It only took a moment for his steely cobalt eyes to verify that this man did not have the keys to the shackles.

So with terrifying force, he pushed back and drove the spear right through the young man's rearmost hand, into his gut, and out again through his back. He managed to rip the two or three gossamer strands that held each of his legs to the deck. It was rather painful, and he could feel the skin pulling away. Ignoring the sensation, and holding onto the spear for leverage, he supported the weight of the much larger man with a leg, and used the other to flip him completely over his head and off the raft.

The young man popped off the spear as he flew away, his bones making a sickening sound as it scraped free of the pole. He landed away from the raft with a loud splash. He let out feral screams as he was boiled away alive by the disgusting liquid that surrounded the raft.

The old man heard the splash, but did not turn from facing forward. _That's why I hold the keys,_ he thought as he continued to move the raft.

Deafening silence resumed after the young man's body was compeltely devoured in the waterway.

Bankotsu's legs fell heavily toward the floor of the raft. Feeling his body screaming all over again, he let his left hand, still rushing with adrenaline and gripping the blood-trailed spear tightly, also drop limply to the deck. He laid his head down to rest on the deck for a moment to recover, his arm still stretched above his head, right hand still firmly bound to the small metal projection. Breaking the shackle was no problem; unattaching himself from the strange little filaments that kept him wired to the deck was excrutiating. But for every one he broke, he could strangely feel just a slight bit of energy return. It was a horrible compromise.

The ferryman eerily, silently kept poling. But with his back turned to the prisoner, his grey-white eyes shifted over to their corners warily. Bankotsu breathed quietly and heavily through gritted teeth. His eyes shifted over to the ferryman. Both men had an unspoken mutual understanding that by the time the raft reached the lip of the opposite shore, one of them would suffer the same fate as the young armed man.


	4. Chapter 4

12/17/05--Authpress's notes: I still don't own Inuyasha or the Inuyasha universe blah blah Rumiko Takahashi does blah blah blah Shichinintai. :)

**Wayward Ransom, chapter 4.**

He turned his head over to the ferryman. He tried to bring his free left arm underneath himself, hoping he could raise himself to at least one knee to confront him. But the horrible tendrils that attached him to the deck remained in the way.

There was only one option: break them. Just like he broke the filaments attached to his legs. This was no simple task, as breaking the ones attached to his legs were excruciating. He did have some slight satisfaction once the pain was over, he would feel a return of energy...but it came at a price. He was losing a lot of blood quickly from the gashes, which ran like like sword cuts, on his legs from pulling the tendrils out.

However, it was greatly unfortunate that there was no way the ferryman would allow him to peacefully explore both shores. He intended to put him somewhere from which he could not voluntarily return, and that gave him the notion that the ferryman could not be trusted...even if he had every good intention of dropping him off at Paradise's shore...and even if his brothers were already there.

Bankotsu gritted his teeth even harder...and, keeping both eyes locked on the seemingly harmless ferryman, began to bring his left arm across himself, angled his torso, and wilfully pull up on the threads. Two more popped before he unconsiously had to cry out, stop pulling, and rest his brow on his still bound right forearm.

The ferryman still kept himself stoic. Bankotsu found something in himself that could almost be called respect for him; the ferryman seemd to know his place, and the inevitability of the conflict that was to occur, whether his prisoner was fully bound or not. He seemed to be an experienced warrior, just like himself, and that gave him all the more reason to use the utmost caution.

The last three threads snapped. Soon most of the back of his white gi would be red. Agony and relief intermingled again.

He was up on one knee, still with one hand chained to the floor. He tried breaking the shackle again, but to no avail. The connection between shackle and post on the other wrist must have been a lucky fluke. Whoever wanted him on that opposite shore was prepared for him. He braced the spear-topped staff in his right hand, hunched over at the ready._Not prepared enough, though...,_ he thought.

The ferryman figured he avoided the issue long enough. It was too pressing and the prisoner needed to be disabled and dropped off at the shore. He poled one last time, after which he hooked the pole onto a support so it wouldn't fall into the hellish water. He drew his right hand around his front and under his cloak...

His katana flashing red and white with the two different lights of the shores at play on the raft, he struck out faster than lightning at Bankotsu, and the spear blocking his strike broke in a thousand pieces.

The ferryman struck again.

With a spark of electricity, it was blocked by the only thing left that could stop it...the cuff still encircling Bankotsu's left wrist. The ferryman struck at Bankotsu a few more times, but all of them were blocked with a flash of fire. All the while he continually yanked on the damned stubborn cuff that wouldn't budge.

The ferryman was getting frustrated, which was most distracting. He swiped again and did manage to cut the prisoner on the shoulder, and more of Bankotsu's once pure white gi was now turning red. Thinking he could take out his prisoner's legs before he took out his eyes, he decided to swipe low, just grazing the boards beneath the blade. Bankotsu dodged and the blade hit the small metal projection coming out of the floor of the raft.

Sensing a huge opening in the ferryman's offense, he slid his right leg under the handle of the blade, where it was held by the old man. He kicked up with such force the katana went spinning straight up in the air. The ferryman's eyes opened wide and, due to his previous experience, could start to see the writing on his own tombstone. He had no time to even consider his well-broken hand.

Not losing an instant, Bankotsu threw his free fist into the ferryman's wide-eyed face. This stunned the old warrior further, and he started to teeter backward, holding his now much-broken face in his still intact left hand.

The blade came down, and Bankotsu's hand was ready to catch it, with the blade upward and away from the thumb side of his hand.

The young man gave a mighty slash around and forward, deftly rending the ferryman's innards all over himself. After an instant, the ferryman dropped to the floor of the raft, and laid there, dead, a panting but still alive Bankotsu one one knee, pausing as he held the blade still after striking. He relaxed and let the blade drop to the floor of the raft for now.

Bankotsu rooted around on his body for the keys, and after locating them, gladly removed his raw right wrist from one cuff and in turn removing the cuff from his other wrist. He kicked his opponent's body over board, and it hissed and melted and gave off a reeking stench as it disappeared in the liquid.

He desperately started poling over to the heavenly shore himself, happy to simply see his friend Jakotsu again.

He poled up to within an inch of the shore...and in fact right in front of Jakotsu.

He desparately wanted to throw an arm around his buddy. He desperately wanted to join his brothers, his clan, his family, but decided not to step on the shore right now due to the fables he heard about this place. "Jakotsu!" he said right in front of his friend with a smile, and relief in his eyes.

Jakotsu simply wasn't answering him.

Bankotsu stood in amazed silence. "Jakotsu?"

Jakotsu, even more oblivious than he ever was in life, continued scanning the shoreline, not acknowledging the presence of his mentor.

"You...can't see or hear me...can you...Jakotsu."

No he couldn't. That was the reason no one ever left this place. There was a sort of barrier, like Mount Hakurei...dividing the hellish Sanzu from the heavenly community past the shore's sands.

Bankotsu thought about their irony-laden situation. The now weaponless Jakotsu, on the sunny, heavenly, peaceful, healing shore. Bankotsu inches ..._inches _away, on the fouled, ancient raft, on the sizzlingly acidic water, the hellish red mist still surrounding him, discoloring his torn, sweat-and-blood-stained gi, holding an even bloodier katana which wasn't even his own weapon. Simply seeing Jakotsu again made him ache and hunger for his comrades' companionship. And for comfort. Maybe even some good sake, he laughed to himself, as he remembered the times how he and his comrades often shared it when they successfully brought yet another army down. Yeah, the rest of the Seven were unruly and wild and high-maintenance...but they were _his own_. And he never asked any of them to join him; the sheer force of his personality and will...and Jakotsu's flirtatiousness...is what attracted them all to him. They were his arms, and legs, and eyes and ears when he needed them. They were like a reincarnation, or even more, like a second body. It almost seemed like this was the last thing _someone _was counting on to seduce him into stepping on the sand.

But...he could not.

One, only _one _thing stopped him from taking that one step off the raft, and throwing his arm over his friend.

He knew exactly what it was. It was that his body was healed now. However, he did not have what was most important to him.

He did not have his soul.

And with starving, tired eyes that took in everything, the beautiful white buildings, the exotic flowers, the bridges, the clear water, the glisteningly white sand...his friend...he took up the pole again. And pushed sadly away from the shore.

"I_will_ be back Jakotsu...forgive me...forgive...me..."


	5. Chapter 5

Author's notes: Thanks tovarious name sites including About dot com, for help on naming some charaters. If I named a character stupidly please tell me, I know NOTHING about Japanese! I'm just trying to keep a consistent feeling with Bankotsu's name. I'm really flying by the seat of my pants with this fic.

I'm also learning that this boy is HARD to keep in character. No wonder there's so little fanfic about him.

Also, in the previous chapters, I forgot to mention the disclaimers. I got lots of info from inuyashaworld dot com for episode help. And I'm not doing this for profit. I don't own Inuyasha. I don't want to own Inuyasha anyway, I want to own Bankotsu. But I don't and I can't. Sigh. Please don't sue me.

**Wayward Ransom, chapter 5.**

He had to stop poling for a moment, and resting the bottom of the pole on the deck, he allowed the ferry to go forward under its own inertia for a moment. He placed his firmly furrowed brow on the pole, his hands circled around it. Everything familiar torn away...again. But this time, he realized, he did it only to himself. Not by fate, or circumstance, or through manipulation by others. By himself. There was no one else on which to lay the blame this time.

His friends, his comrades...people who have _died _for him were there...on that lovely shore. What an insult to their honor. Bankotsu figured he might have as well spit on their graves he himself had made for as many of them as he could when he was in the above world. He might have as well pissed on them instead of drowning himself in sake and contemplating spirituality as he tearlessly mourned for them.

He had given up his friends so he could search for something as undefined, as purposeless, as intangible and unattainable, as...his soul. The hell could he possibly be thinking with that?

At that point, he figured he could not even trust himself. Just like he was not able to trust so many around him...except maybe Jakotsu...but Jakotsu, strangely, was like a pure, innocent child. He wore his heart on his sleeve, and Bankotsu was sure he didn't even know _how_ to lie. Bankotsu _knew_ how to lie, but never would stoop to do it. It was simply wrong. It wasn't _real_.

Just like souls weren't real.

He thought about when he met the pretty shrine girl in the woods. She seemed to see right through him...right through his soulless body. She was one of the very, _very_ few people that seemed to be able to. Did he really believe the things he told her? Or was he lying _then_? Or maybe he was telling half-truths to protect himself? Or, maybe even to protect her...from himself? He wasn't sure anymore.

Nevermind. He couldn't control the memories. They flashed back again and again, entering the precious space which he worked so hard in his brief resurrected life to maintain, keeping them beaten down...when necessary. The old seer was right. She was right...she was always so _damned_ right.

At three years old, it was a common custom for everyone in the village where he had been born and grown to get a formal appointment with an elderly seer woman by the name of Maemi. The whole thing started as a joke when Maemi amused herself in the more magical arts and gave fortune readings to her friends which were surprisingly accurate. That was many decades ago.

Even though now she was older, Maemi was at her heart of hearts, a great woman. And most of her predictions tended to ring true over the years. Because of this, she insisted only to give predictions _once_ for a child, and made it a very big to-do, where a few children, all the same age, would be given their fortunes in small classes like a school. If she did not have this stipulation, and did not give it such a formal air, she was sure that everyone would be on her doorstep every day of the week, which she knew would irritate her.

Since in her readings, she merely said what came to mind, and only was half-consciously aware of what she was saying when channeling, she made a great effort to explain to parents that her predictions were not set in stone; a child's fate could be changed at any time. She only merely gave a snapshot as to the potential present. In spite of the parents knowing the loopholes in her predictions, and trying to explain them to their children, all the children really thought Maemi's formal gatherings were something very special, and looked forward to them. Maemi herself loved children, so she didn't really mind doing this much anyway.

However, Bankotsu's prediction was different from everyone else's. When touching his forehead, she half-awakenedly muttered things about "a living weapon", "demons" and "will lose everything he loves".

Maemi was stunned. She never channeled something so serious in all her years of doing this. On the positive side, everyone ended up in laughter at the ludicrous thought. Even Bankotsu's parents laughed. He himself wanted to laugh, but the "losing everything he loves" part stopped him. But he himself knew he was no demon, and so did everyone else. He was always so small, so serious, and so completely inept at everything intellectual...especially reading and writing.

His parents figured the first requirement to becoming a living demon was some sort of _ability_ to do demonic things. Like contemplate taking over the universe and..well, things like that. He was somewhat a disappointment to them. His parents shared quite often with others that they wanted a child for a very, very long time, and they felt extremely fortunate in being granted a boy for the first child. They often admitted to enjoying doting on him a bit. However, the older he seemed to get, the more they wished to trade him in for another but laughingly knew they could not...half out of love, and half out of sheer duty So in spite of his quirks, they did their best with what they had, and bit their tongues when necessary. They couldn't seem to train him to take up a literate profession, and they didn't even bother ever putting a weapon in his hand. Not only did his father want him to be intellectual and work for a court or something very special rather than slinging katanas on a battlefield, his son just always seemed too unimpressive to wield anything effectively. His father eventually figured his son was named after the virtue of "courage" because it would take _courage_ for him to simply find something he could _do_ in life.

The only other child in the room smaller than Bankotsu was a very strange, somewhat plainly pretty girl named Akiko. She no doubt had some unusual blood in her, as her eyes constantly exuded a yellow inner light. She was tiny, pale, and had bright orange-tinted brown hair, done up in two little buns out of which streams of more hair flowed.

Having no idea where she came from naturally, the only information anyone had about her was that she was adopted by a wonderful, loving couple, who treated her like one of their own. Other children stayed away from her, but in spite of this, and because of her parents' influence, she was obviously going to become a very loving person.

Every other child in the room expected Maemi to say something completely bombastic about Akiko. She was just too strange for them. _She_ was meant to transform into horrible things and eventually want to take over the universe, the other children thought. But when her head was touched, Maemi smiled broadly. She mentioned beauty, and harmlessness, and serenity. She mentioned having a destiny meeting a supportive man, seeing many different lands, and et cetera.

The other children, excepting Bankotsu, laughed at that one, too. The parents just couldn't be cruel to Little Akiko, as she was often called. Seeing no reason to hurt her feelings, they stifled the laughter they only knew that wanted to make. Even just that slight bit of laughter that did manage to escape from some of them, he remembered, actually made him pretty angry. He never had any preconceived notions about who was "better" than anyone else, and didn't even ever care, so the other childrens' reactions at her fortune bothered him. Didn't she have the right to those things just like everyone else? And so she looked unusual. Lots more people looked even MORE unusual and still ended up leading relatively blessed lives.

Problem was, Little Akiko was considered too strange by others. Too nice, too quiet. Those eyes. It went unspoken that her looks would never endear her to marry anyone wealthy. So they all figured, one day she might snap and begin devouring their little friends, or something. Some even hoped she would tranform into an angel or something and just fly far away. If anyone were to have a truly ground-shaking fortune, it should have been her.

She just smiled calmly, and respectfully said thank you, and the last thing Bankotsu remembered was Maemi moving onto the next child.

Bankotsu shuddered, coming back to the present. That's exactly what he was in the battlefield. A living demon. A creature of hell. He didn't start out that way at least intentionally...but that's where fate took him. Because he had no where else to go. He continued to pole as the involuntary reminiscences came rising like bubbles, like those around the pole in the searing liquid whenever he used it to move forward.

Going home after their little fortune telling session was over, Bankotsu happened to see Little Akiko was cornered by some rude children. The same ones that smirked and giggled at the idea that she'd have any semblance of a happy ending. They were trying their best to get on her nerves, and, they seemed to have been trying to annoy her for a while, because she was furious, and everyone knew what an incredibly long fuse she had. Bankotsu decided to hang out and watch. Things like this really caused a strange "protective" streak to awaken. After all, the same boys irritated him earlier, and to see Little Akiko upset was a really, _really_ rare thing. She kept insisting that all she wanted was to be left in peace, and these few boys couldn't seem to do that. He remembered the boys saying they were _positive_ that the woman had accidentally switched the fortunes of her and Bankotsu, or at least, she should have had his...and he should have had a more mediocre, less intimidating fortune, to match his mental abilities and his stature. Akiko fired back, naturally, that that was the stupidest thing she'd ever heard.

She defended herself well, until one started to pull on her hair. That was _it_. Bankotsu had watched enough. And always the type to literally run headlong into things quite recklessly, he resolved to get himself involved and do something about this. He checked his person, and not finding anything to use for offense on him, he ran across the street into the nearest blacksmith's shop, and into its display window. He scanned the store for the easiest thing to...uh...borrow, which was the huge ceremonial nodachi that ran the entire length of the display window, kept in a beautiful green sheath with long red tassels, showing off the blacksmith's exceptional skills. He promptly helped himself to the expectionally long, very heavy blade. The shop owner was stunned the little boy could pick the thing up, let alone run out the threshold with it, so didn't even think to stop him. And, seeing his unusual strength, didn't want to, either.

Bankotsu ran between the offensive boys, carrying the huge weapon quite comfortably in his small hands. One of them saw Bankotsu running towards them, and had every intention of calling his bluff as he ran toward them. "Hey! Here comes the good-hearted, heroic _dunce_!" As Bankotsu ran closer to them, they spied the oversized nodachi he was carrying. And when they saw the weapon, their comments became more cutting. "What do you expect to _do_ to all of us? And with _that_ thing? You're not that much bigger than _her_!"

Some got knocked over just from the weight of the weapon as Bankotsu, not-quite-accidentally, hit them with the sheath as he ran through them. The others cowered in fear after Bankotsu turned around, threw the sheath aside to uncover the shining metal, and quite unconsciously brought it to a completely proper attack position. He swung it around effortlessly, and purposely, _just _out of reach of the boys' noses. And once or twice, he even did it one-handed.

And he really, really..._enjoyed_ it. He raised half of his mouth in a wicked, charming smirk and...and found himself...chuckling! Yeah. Screw the books and the learning and the courts; this was quite comfortable. This was something he could _do_. Must be pretty cool to be trained and hack it out in a good duel with a skilled opponent once in a while.

Their eyes became wide with terror when they saw the smirk on his face, and experienced how agonizingly close he swung the weapon to their faces without hitting them. Some of them thought the wiser. "Holy shit...he's not bluffing...let's run!" They grabbed each others' collars, trying to drag the slow children along with them.

The boys turned and ran. One boy picked up a sharp rock and lobbed it hard at Bankotsu, smacking him right in the middle of the forehead with it, and created a long horizontal gash. Another boy chided the first for throwing the rock; he was silly for not running away from someone so strong.

Still having no truly refined fighting skills, Bankotsu was knocked backwards and off his feet by the rock. The nodachi dropped to the ground with a deafening _clang!_. His seat and hands also hit the ground, and a trail of blood started to run from the gash.

Little Akiko peered over Bankotsu. With those strange eyes. Bankotsu blushed.

She laughed.

"That was so neat!" she said as she clapped her hands and smiled at the dark, handsome boy. "Next time make sure you actually hit them for me! Or maybe I could hold them down for you...or...something!" she laughed louder. She was always thought of as odd, but since no one ever talked to her, no one knew she could be so spunky! She fumed as the boys ran away. "They really made me mad." Remembering her hero, she knelt down aside of him. "That looks like it hurts," she said to Bankotsu. "Thank you." She threw her arms around him, and planted a kiss that was supposed to be on the mouth, but missed entirely because Bankotsu, embarrassed, turned his head at the last moment. The kiss landed on his jawline by his ear and knocked him even more off balance than before. It made him forget all about the feverish rush he got from challenging someone with a weapon in his hands.

Bankotsu quickly got up off the ground and held a sleeve to his forehead. Absolutely not knowing a darn thing to say, he picked up the blade and sheath, and with the weapon cut the crimson tassel from the sheath. "Here. It's for you. It'll...uh...remind you that there's always someone that's ready kick their asses for you."

Little Akiko thanked him again, and went off, turning around to wave goodbye. She carried the tassel in her other hand close to her as if it were made of solid gold. Bankotsu waved back himself, puzzled. What did he get himself into, now?

And getting absorbed in the action, he never even noticed the crowd gathering around him. The entire town soon heard of Bankotsu's fortune...and now that they saw him so effortlessly weilding a weapon so heavy that he shouldn't have even been able to pick up yet...it crossed their minds that maybe the fortune was true. The boy certainly must have had a demon inside of him, giving him such unusual strength, and skills he shouldn't even have had any notions about.

Two men serving the current daimyo were in the back of the crowd. One, the son of the much aged and expiring daimyo, was interested very, very much in Bankotsu. The other, his first in command, couldn't help but stare at the strange girl. The daimyo's son couldn't help but wonder why the other found the _girl_ so fascinating, but didn't question. But neither said anything right now. They had both heard about the boy's fortune, too, because as everyone knows, gossip always moves faster than the fleetest military horses. The first man would know the time would come when the boy would have to move on and give their leader much use of his skills. After all, they saw what he could do at three. _Imagine_ what he could do, fully trained, at thirteen!


	6. Chapter 6

Authoress' notes: Edited this 10/30/05. Got rid of those offensive capitals. Wow, I went caps-lock crazy here.

I also have to say that if some words are smushed together, that must be the program used to upload and view the text. As soon as I unsmush some words, other words are jammed together. It's kind of annoying. S, it's unfortunately just impossible to fix it all.

**Wayward Ransom, Chapter 6.**

Bankotsu resumed poling after letting the memory slip by. He was getting better at that, now that the damned jewel shards were removed from his body, not there to attempt to paralyze him in hate anymore. Or maybe he always paralyzed himself in hate, and the jewel shards only took advantage of that, magnified it, and the harder he tried to kept it under control, the harder it wanted to break out. With the rest of his comrades, the hate seemed uncontrollably channeled to whomever was near after their resurrection. Some were like that even before that. With Bankotsu, it was only channeled to the people who orginally caused the problem. The jewel may have been dark in his neck, but he refused to let the fragment take away his basic humanity. Maybe that's why he managed to live so long all the time...karma was kind to him in the long run.

But keeping all that hate under control took a _lot_ of effort. Sake helped a bit with that.

It didn't take much more poling to get back to the other shore. Being careful not to touch the acidic liquid, he leaped off the raft, keeping the katana he had with him at his side now constantly...just in case. He turned around briefly, only to see that the whitish glow of the opposite shore was now too far away to even be seen.

The opposite shore, with his friend on it, blissfully unaware of his presence inches in front of him. That was all now a memory, too.

The next memory...another old one...howled in his head. It reared up like an unbroken stallion. It insisted on invading the precious space. It was one of the worst memories he had.

Several months later-

No.

Several months later-

"_No_, damn it!"

Several months later, in the darkening twilight, he arrived home from doing an errand for his parents. Upon sliding the front door open, he saw his parents sitting on the floor with two strangers. They looked like very important men, armor-clad, with weapons laid next to them respectfully on the floor.

His mother gave him a horrible look. It was of utter resignation. A total emptiness.

"Bankotsu...these men are here for you."

The boy was...confused. He didn't like the men.

She insisted. "Bankotsu...go with these men. It's for your own good. Your father and I discussed this for a long time until we reached the decision that this was right. Go...get your things and go with them."

Bankotsu was shocked. They went so quickly from fawning over him...just yesterday...bought him an expensive outfit, fit for a court appearance...they suddenly went to _this_?

"No, I won't leave..." it wasn't the fact that the men wanted to leave with him that bothered Bankotsu. It was the fact that all this came completely blindsided to him. And the fact that everyone now insisted he was something other than human...which he absolutely knew he wasn't.

His father decided to try and convince him. "Bankotsu, you have a demon..."

"I am not a demon."

"Bankotsu..."

"I am not a demon! I don't have anything to do with demons!"

His parents looked toward the men. His father supplicated them. "Just take him..please. Beat it out of him if you have to."

The two large men got up off the floor, and walked over to him.

"No!" Bankotsu did what any other confused child would. He made for the door and ran.

One gruff gentleman got up and started folowing him out the door immediately. "After that boy!"

He ran all over town for at least a half hour, dodging, ducking, running, and leaping over things in his way. The two men followed him wherever he went, amazed at his inherent physical abilities. They followed him on foot, and soon after, on horseback. They followed him outside the village. They followed him to the woods.

As he was running in the near-darkness, hardly able to see by now, he heard something snap under his feet, and slid...down, way down, tumbling over himself the entire time.

He had fallen into what was a shallow, abandoned well. His perfectly slicked back, short, tied-back hair now a complete mess, to match the rest of him. Dirty and sweaty, he tried to get up. He winced and cried out. His left ankle was broken.

Hoofbeats, and horses braying above.

He heard the men circling about the entrance to the cave, one speaking about how he knew he had seen him fall down there, and the other grunting in agreement.

They called down to him. "Boy! Get back outta there! You can either die down that hole, or you can get yourself out. If you get yourself out, we know we found the right boy. If you don't, we know we must keep looking!" He seemed to speak to his partner now. "We'll wait here for him for a while. If he doesn't show up soon, we'll go back to the old woman and ask her to describe the boy herself."

Bankotsu was in tears...not actually crying, but in tears. They ran down his cheeks and soaked into the cold, moist ground. Somehow, he miraculously kept himself together. To calm himself, he kept his eyes closed for a long while, repeated the mantra "I am _not_ a demon..." over and over and over.

He could either die there, or find a way out...and live.

He looked around. He noticed that the well was narrow. Very narrow. He tried a few times to brace himself up with his arms and a leg, and sort of shimmy upwards. It worked until his ankle screamed at him. Insult added to more injury as he fell back down. His forehead got sraped deeply as he tumbled and slid, and later on, he noticed the two scars merged in the perfect shape of a cross. It would be an all-too-obvious scar he would carry for the rest of his life.

He let out an exasperated scream, beating his fists on the ground.

One last time he'd try to shimmy up...and succeeded. He amazinglycrawled out under his own power.

When one of Bankotsu's dirty hands showed up on the surface, the two men were speechless. When they saw his cobalt eyes come up from the hole, they were astounded. He gritted his teeth and threw the rest of himself over the lip of the hole, onto the grass.

They now spoke with a sympathetic tone to their voices. Not that they would have been sympathetic if he would have died in that hole, though.

"Holy crap, boy, are you a survivor! That'll come in real handy. Come with us. Let us show you what could be done with your skills. We will take care of you. We promise."

Bankotsu, who had been sitting on one side on the ground, his ankles trailing behind, and one of them getting quite swollen. Breathing through his little teeth, he quietly acquiesed, and got placed on one of the horses after being patched up by the men.

The little boy had a new look on his face. And a new attitude. Both were stern, cold, resigned.

_I guess it's time to make everyone happy...and become the demon everyone...thinks...I...am._

Maybe he was getting better at letting the memories slip by rather than keeping them out...

...Nah.


	7. Chapter 7

Authoress's notes: Yeah, plot's been done before. Sorry. You probably got a pretty good inkling of it by now.(sigh...) The only question that remains is whether Bankotsu will get through this fic with all his clothes on and his braid in...methinks not! (giggles stupidly like a dumb fangirl)

10/30/05-Edited. Unnecessary capitals have been sporked.

**Wayward Ransom, Chapter 7.**

After gazing for a while at the horizon that hid the beautiful shore, Bankotsu turned once again back to what lay in front of him. It was impossible to see anything at a distance because of the humid, hellish red mist that enveloped the entire area.

Bankotsu was sure there was some sort of nexus point, or portal, where the unsettled, unmourned, and unacknowledged dead arrived here in the first place, so later they may cross the Sanzu on the ferry. Now, only to find it...

Getting to the above world was now the highest priority...because Bankotsu knew, somehow, that his soul was...not here.

Taking no more than two steps, he had to stop again. There were dark, indistinct figures slowly coming toward him. He prepared his bloody katana, ready to strike if need be. He was already painfully weak from snapping those damned fibers; his right gi sleeve stained red from shoulder to elbow. He was hoping luck would be with him and he'd be able to compensate for his shoulder by being at the ready in case the figures were not harmless, or in case they were strong enough to put up a reasonable fight. Even being weakened, however, he would still probably fare very well.

The figures became more distinct, and eventually became distinguishable as completely human. The people coming toward him were eerie, zombie-like. They were ragged, and dirty, and tired-looking. There were men, women and children, and there were some of each who were doing everything from wailing loudly to silently tearing. They held no weapons, but the sad, hopeless expressions they had on their faces were emotionally draining. They almost teetered back and forth, walking in a glazed-over gaze, and kept repeating something about "crossing".

Bankotsu was confused...these seemed to be peasants.

The peasants that were up front stopped upon seeing Bankotsu and his bloody, ragged state. They saw the empty raft in back of him, the gore from the ferryman still covering the deck, and the bloody katana in Bankotsu's hand.

One zombie man, with utterly sad eyes, raised his clawed, languid hand and pointed a rail-thin finger at Bankotsu. "You...killed...the ferryman! Youkilled him! We must wait now until there is another!"

A crying woman shouted from the side, "We have waited _so long_! We want peace! _You killed him! _How much longer must we wait!" She loudly sobbed, making fists with her hands and looking up to the black, empty space that would be perfectly blue sky on the opposite shore.

The zombie peasants became more hostile. They became increasingly loud and unruly. Bankotsu was sure the entire hellish place was guarded, as the ferry was guarded, and soon the noise from the peasants would attract unwanted attention.

The man in the front seemed to speak to the rest of them, without turning toward them. "Killed...ferryman! Delayed...our peace! We will...tear you apart!"

And with that, the zombies advanced.

Weeping, wailing zombies seemed to pour into his vision from all sides. Many of them had tearstains running down their faces.

These people, Bankotsu knew, were not warriors. They were lost souls of people killed in wars and other violent acts, seeking eternal relief. And not intending to cause any more harm, he simply made his own way toward them; in fact, he walked boldly right through them.

They tore at his gi, and latched on to his braid The tie that kept his jet balckhair neatlyaway from his facewas easily pulled off, and his hair began to unwind as he walked through the crowd. Bankotsu had to guard the wound on his arm with his left hand lest it get worsened. Still, some of the lost souls were lucky enough to give him a few scratches on the arms and legs, or get a hold of his long, loosened hair for a moment, but none were even strong enough to make him stop walking. Ignoring the light scraping on his skin, and the sound of his clothes tearing away, he pressed forward silently through the undead gathering, briefly considering pity for these people. It took a strong person with a strong will to do what he had done; none of these simple villagers were strong enough to do the same as Bankotsu. They were prisoners here until another ferryman was found and they could be taken across to the the other shore. He could not bring himself to raise either his katana or his hands against them; either would be too cruel for these people. He had some hope in the knowledge that their relief was delayed, and yeah, due to his own workings, but that was necessity; their hopes were not completely taken away. He knew what that felt like, having lived and died in that manner before; he could not bring himself do that to anyone else. Their sadness was debilitating enough, on both parties.

As he escaped his thoughts, three more figures approached. They were larger, and sure enough, the sounds of leather and metal alerted Bankotsu to the fact that these were guards, their attention caught by the loud, weeping lost souls.

They stopped right in front of Bankotsu. The largest guard stood in the center, heavily armored and equipped with a katana of his own, and towering far over Bankotsu's head. He was flanked on either side by two smaller guards, with lighter armor. They still held katanas, and had them at the ready.

The large man said to the one on his left and right turning to each man, "Go take over the ferry for now...you, go and have forces ready at the nexus point."

The smaller man on the right put away his weapon and ran in the direction from where the three of them appeared. The man on his left also sheathed his weapon and headed through the crowd of lost souls. Now that there would be a makeshift ferryman, the crowd of lost souls became desperately distracted; they now scraped and scratched at the guard, sighing and weepingly vying to be first on the raft to be taken to Paradise.

The thick-necked, pale guard stood right in Bankotsu's path. Bankotsu defiantly crossed his arms.

"So, here's the escapee that we held for ten years. Pity to think you wasted all that time for which you were so _graciously_ set free."

"I don't consider it 'freedom' when a deal is built on a lie!" Bankotsu shot back.

Inwardly, he was shocked that he spent ten years here, in this hellish place, and had no memory of it. But maybe that was part of the place's magic. The first time he was sent here had been hellish, the second time around, had not been as bad as the first. However, he figured there was so much unfinished business in his life, he could simply not rest. He could not touch that beautiful shore. The battle with the half-demon was not the end of his path. He would not accept that.

Ah, yes. the half-demon.

Bankotsu didn't have a shred of resentment for the half-demon. After all, once Naraku's lies had been exposed, Bankotsu had no trouble weakening, even _disabling_ himself by using demonic attacks, even actually _allowing_ him to win. The hanryou's words had been right; Bankotsu could have easily finished off the half-demon with his bare hands. The both of them knew that. And, after defeating him, he would have never been allowed to leave the mountain alive had he won. Never being one to back down from a job or a good duel, Bankotsu's "stubborn ass" streak totally prevented him from joining him. Running away was unthinkable, and his already defeated brothers needed a vindicator. Purposely losing was, by far, the best option available at the time. And the only way to explain all of that was a tired chuckle from a defeated undead man.

But still...

Bankotsu also felt he got the much-needed cosmic slap across the face he so utterly deserved from the half-demon. He got out of line in dabbling with anything other than earthy, physical power, and paid for it. And since Bankotsu took no caution in discipling his own unruly, distracted men, he had no problem taking the lashing he himself knew he needed...being so wrapped up in resentment and hate and anger because of the terrible thing that happened ten years ago, it was often necessary.

But... There was so much of which to be resentful. So much betrayal and pain. So much pain caused to the people who didn't deserve it. Maybe after he found his soul, he'd be able to let it all go...somehow...but not now. Just _not_ now.

The guard shifted slightly, and the creaking of armor brought Bankotsu to the present again. "We were able to beat you down in a matter of moments the first time you arrived here, in this timeless prison, you poor lost soul. We could have kept you unconscious and bound here for eternity. You were not very _strong_ when you first arrived here ages ago, lost soul."

With a wicked half-smile, Bankotsu chuckled. "Well, we'll see. This poor lost soul is much, _much_ stronger now."

Standing off in the thick red mist, the guard was the first to crack. He slowly brought his weapon to the ready. "I'll get a great reward for hauling you in again, boy. Especially for taking the old ferryman's and his pupil's lives...maybe even a promotion!" He lunged at Bankotsu with all his weight. "And this time you'll stay locked away for a thousand years and not just ten!"

Bankotsu, for not being even more than three quarters the height of the guard, easily parried the attack. He felt that the katana was close to breaking from the impact from the blow, which made Bankotsu horribly miss having the sturdy, terrifying _Banryuu_ in his hands again.

The guard tried to swing high, and Bankotsu ducked to miss the blow. He struck back with a low blow of his own, and, so the guard's legs would not be torn, he had to take a number of lumbering steps backward, completely taking him off balance. Taking advantage of this, Bankotsu kicked low, and tripped the guard. The guard landed heavily on his back with a loud _SLAM! _and a cloud of red dust.

Pinned down humiliatedly by the much smaller Bankotsu, the guard trembled. The young man was amazing. "Tell me where to get out of this hellhole and I'll let you live!" hissed Bankotsu, holding the katana over the guard's neck.

The guard's small will, as compared to his oversized body, crumbled. "Straight a-a-ahead! There's a portal...to...to take y-you whereever you want to go!"

With that answer, Bankotsu was satisfied. Straight ahead. He would find this portal and use it. He would find his soul. He unlocked the miserable guard's neck, got off his chest, and set about to follow the red mist-shrouded path in front of him, never turning back once.

Once Bankotsu's back was turned from climbing off the guard, the guard ever so slowly, after bringing himself to stand, returned his right hand to his weapon.

Quickly, he struck at Bankotsu's back, thinking that the former prisoner would never be able to catch his blade in time.

He was wrong.

Sensing the attack, Bankotsu was even quicker to block the attack from the rear right with the ferryman's katana, simply by a flip up of his own weapon. In a flash, he spun around on his heel, one-hundred-eighty degrees, and in one motion cleanly halved the guard's windpipe. As his body fell to the ground, his face still bore the same expression of shock when Bankotsu was able to sense and block his rear attack.

Bankotsu would take the dead man's weapon, giving him two blades. Upon reaching down for it, he realized how painful the gash on his right arm the ferryman gave him was getting, and how dizzy he was becoming. He noticed trickles of red running down to his forearm now, even running off his fingers. He forced himself to pick the extra blade up, and keep going. This was, after all, a battle for his soul.

He carried the two blades in his right hand for now, clutching at the wound with the left, ever so slightly staggering. The duel with the guard, though very brief, was terribly taxing on that arm.

He made a resolution to himself that when he reached that nexus point, he'd let himself rejoin the above world in one of the two places he could find his soul...or at least maybe find the broken pieces of its hollow shell.


	8. Chapter 8

Authoress's notes: Hey, hey, hey. I'm happy to bring another chapter. My job is so getting in the way if this. I have the whole darn story planned out and not nearly enough time to get it out of my system. But I have to say that the first paragraph of every chapter is always the hardest to write.

Thanks so much for the people who wrote encouraging comments. It's for those people that I continue with my story.

Anyhoo. Ennuffathat. Enjoy!

**Wayward Ransom, Chapter 8.**

The sounds of sorrow and torture swirled around Bankotsu as he made his way towards the nexus point. The humid air hung in his lungs, and he couldn't imagine how anyone had the energy to scream as much as he heard. In between screams and wails was only horrifying silence. Such as it was here on this side of Paradise.

What was strange was that there were no guards along the way. Continuing to walk, he was intrigued as to why there were none trying to stop him. There were various cells and cages and other means to detain people here, some were full, some were empty. But no one watching them.

He came to a particularly disturbing sight. A black metal enclosure. It seemed to contain some sort of vertical black metal cage, with claws shaped like a man's ribcage. Just large enough for holding one man by encircling him around the torso. The ends were sharp, crossed each other in the front, and were covered in crimson. There were various other locks and chains to hold the extremeties and the neck. He came closer to examine it, and found almost _everything_ was covered in crimson.

Horrified, he started walking away...and for a second, thought he saw a vision of someone in there.

Himself.

He tried to pick up the pace to a run, but was soon overcome with a short bout of dizzyness. He would have to stop and rest soon, as physically he was close to being worn out. Amazing...there were so many things in this place to keep people from escaping...including that horrible cage, which he didn't want to even think of himself being contained in for ten years.

Sarcastically, he forced himself to look on the bright side, and managed to crack a wry smile.

At least there were no ants here.

He remembered when ants were meaningless...Like when he was a young child. Like when he and Jakotsu had just met, with Bankotsu flatly but kindly refusing Jakotsu's young and hopelessly flawed romantic advances. He had seen Jakotsu being trained before, and though Jakotsu was several years his senior, Bankotsu was already way ahead of him in strength and agility. Without even exchanging names, his new tagalong had invited himself to practically everything the reserved, thoughtful Bankotsu did and everywhere he went, making him talk and drawing him out of his shell, bringing a welcome relief to constant training.

Sitting on the steps to a town inn, which lay right on the main street of the town, Jakotsu had asked to know the other's name first and its meaning. Bankotsu had the answers he grew up with, one of which would have been "courage", on the tip of his tounge, but Jakotsu interrupted and mentioned something about barbarians and bones, "oo"ing and "ahh"ing. He was amazed that his new friend would have such a neat and fear-instilling name. When Jakotsu finally decided to tell his own name, he took Bankotsu's name as a template, and finished it off with the reference to his favorite animal, the snake.

Fascinated by this alternate meaning, Bankotsu thought about it, and told his tagalong that when he became a great warrior, he'd tell people it was that particular interpretation. But secretly, he also promised himself he'd keep the word "courage" close to his heart.

Then he saw the carriage...holding indebted and incarcerated women driving by...and a flash of brown-orange hair...

Jakotsu made a messed-up face at the carriage and mentioned lots of things he hated about women, but Bankotsu thought he saw something disturbingly familiar. However, he wasn't sure, so didn't dwell on it for very long.

Meanwhile, an ant found its way up Bankotsu's foot, so he flicked it away, while continuing to sit and talking meaningless, but wholly entertaining jibberish with Jakotsu.

Ants took on a whole different meaning ten years ago...

Continuing to walk along the path before him, the material under his feet changed, and the path became manicured looking, as opposed to the wild, haphazard pathway that went through a desert of nothingness and pain. He looked down, and the path and its border seemed to both be made of marble. The marble was cooler than the dirt path, and Bankotsu sighed in relief at the feeling.

He came to a massive black wrought-iron fence, the same fencing he saw that surrounded the horrible cell with the metal enclosures and projections. The fence seemed to stretch endlessly, until it became tiny and disappeared into the horizon, both to the left and to the right. Immediately in front of him, though, the path went downhill, and the marble border became higher and higher until it came to a huge, heavy gate, guarded by two massive statues in the shape of fighters in white marble above, and at least four heavily armed real guards below. The marble path was flush with the bottom of the gate, which was much lower than the fencing surrounding it.

Knowing that going through the gate would be a bad idea, he veered over to the extreme left of the gate. Using the patterns in the iron to climb over and back down, he saw there was a sort of pit in the ground, completely lined with marble. The pit was very deep into the ground, and also stretched to match the length of the fence surrounding it. Hundreds of soldiers...like ants...were in the pit. Waiting for him.

Now he knew why there were so little forces on the path to this place. They were all _here_.

He saw a flash of blue light in the background, and tired-looking, angry, and sad people were sparsely coming in to the pit from it; he knew this was the portal he needed to get to to go back to the above world.

Having no other choice, Bankotsu dizzily half-climbed down, half-fell down to the unforgiving marble floor below, right in front of the massive gathering of soldiers guarding the portal. Not being able to judge anything well because of his fatigue, he landed hard on his left hip...he feared it was almost too hard, considering how long he had to pause before getting up, and having to limp a bit afterward. That was going to leave a nasty bruise.

There was no where to hide, so soon after he hit the ground, the horde of soldiers knew he was there.

Someone made a loud shout toward the shimmering, magical mass of energy at the back of the crowd of soldiers. Bankotsu narrowed his eyes and only then could see other people, in dark shrouds, standing on either side of the bluish-white light. They seemed to be magicians, stationed on either side, whose job it was to control the portal. He could tell they were furiously trying to close it. Succeeding in beginning the shutdown, the light slowy, ever so slowly, began to shrink in size.

The young man knew there was only one way to get to the portal in time...go _right through _the crowd, to the other side. He had to smirk. Yeah...this is the type of thing he was used to, not that espionage, spying crap. Bankotsu always preferred the _direct_ approach, even though it cost him some skin more often than not.

He readied both legs, and both katanas. He crossed his forearms in front of him, leaving his eyes framed on the top by his dark hair, and the bottom by his crossed forearms. The blood-stained katanas trailed behind him, edges out. The darkness and whiteness of his eyes burned as he faced the soldiers.

Faltering a bit, he had to close his eyes, and shake his head...the blood loss was getting inconvenient and his fatigue was getting less and less ignorable. His hip and arm were getting to him. He forced himself to recover and blend all the multiple images of the same soldiers into one again.

Patiently, the solitary warrior waited for that _one_ soldier on the opposite side to make _one_ wrong move. That would have had to have been the man in the front, closest to Bankotsu, who seemed to be a very high-ranking officer. He drew his fan, made a signal, and immediately hundreds of men rushed toward Bankotsu.

Bankotsu rushed back.

Both sides clashed, and Bankotsu seemed swallowed up by the swarm of underworld soldiers. He knew he had not a moment to waste. The portal behind them was almost closed.

For a few moments, there was a pause. The troops on the sides to the extreme left and right of the crowd started getting confused...they didn't really see anything happening, could not find the headstrong prisoner, and looked lost as to where to attack.

The portal barely open, there was a moment of silence...and after it, Bankotsu shot out from the side of the troops closest to the portal, and made himself tumble right through it.

The portal sealed itself shut.

Realizing their former prisoner had in fact gotten away again, the higher ranking officers bellowed loud curses at the closed portal, then turning on each other, they hurled insults at the magicians on either side of it for being too slow, then lastly, abusing the simple soldiers around them for being so stupid as to let him get away again.

Then they heard the most horrible sound. Everyone looked in the same direction.

The whole crowd of soldiers went quiet, and there was a stillness in the center of them. Right in the path where the young man streaked through, the soldiers who had been struck so quickly they were paralyzed as he ran, began to fall over one another like dominoes, gutted and slashed with the utmost precision.

A trail of fresh blood led right up to the portal. When the soldiers were done blaming each other, and began cleaning up their dead, some noticed it looked almost like a sickening version of a red carpet, laid out for royalty.


	9. Chapter 9

Authoress's notes: As I go forward with this fic, I do have to admit the inspiration for it was sorta "dropped in my lap, on a silver platter". For that I have to say I'm eternally grateful..mwahahahaha! Anyway, I'd never seen any of Inuyasha before except for the Band of 7 arc, and this fic came to me in its entirety after only about 6 episodes worth of that. However, though I started this fic with the SOLE reason that I find Bankotsu totally irresistible, I do have to say I'm learning a lot about myself in the process. Half of what you'll read is autobiograhical, half of it isn't. I don't want to spoil you with anything though! Go and read the fic already. ;o)

10/30/05--Chapter edited. (brandishes giant CAPS LOCK spork)

**Wayward Ransom, chapter 9.**

Two arches of blood drops, each forming as the blood ran out of the grooves in the katanas, followed Bankotsu as he threw himself into the diminishing blue light of the portal. A temporary sense of extreme displacement and vertigo tried to prevent him from concentrating on where he wanted to end up on the outerworld.

Seemingly going through a tunnel of blinding blue light, he saw his destination at the end. The scene became larger and larger, until he tumbled into it, rolling over himself many times from the force of throwing himself through the portal.

Laying stunned for a half a moment, it took some work to gather himself together to look up and see where he was. When he did look up, the ten-year-old foresty overgrowth couldn't hide it from him. He could see it through the branches of the shrubbery. The place even smelled familiar...blood and poison mixing and dancing with each other. It smelled like betrayal and hate and steel.

He was at that horrible place where he was viciously executed ten years ago.

He was at the cottage.

He thought himself insane for coming here again. It had always been here waiting, quietly mocking him as he absorbed himself in his single-minded, stubborn pursuit of the hanryou, as was his objective. He could not come close to here because it was all too distracting. Just as the very life of that bastard young daimyo had been distracting. But now, here he was, with no one to keep him away and nothing to stop him from dealing with the distractions.

However his soul was not here, either. This was one of the most soulless places on earth for him, and yet, he felt some desperate, unexplainable _need_ to face these horrible shadows again. He had come close...very close, to coming here before, but the fear that his rage could not be neatly contained prevented him.

He lowered his head, sighed deeply, and wrinkled his perfect jet black brows. No, he couldn't face this place again...he wanted to block all of it out and not think about it, just like he tried to do when the jewel shards were lodged in his body. He knew not thinking about it all with those horrible little pieces of misery in him was a necessity...fighting off the uncontrollable rage they channeled and magnified in him took so much work..and when they tried to overtake him, he could feel their sharp edges digging in. But they were also the means by which he was kept alive, and all he wanted to ever do was to enjoy his goddamned day now that he actually had one to enjoy.

The other men didn't seem to have this problem with the jewel pieces; they wore their shards quite comfortably. But not him. What happened ten years ago was unexcuseable. And the daimyo that instigated all that was now dead by his own hand...but he knew in his heart that was _not_ enough.

When _would_ it be enough? And what was keeping him here now?

There was some direction, if not the answer, in that damned cottage before him.

He slowly picked himself up from the ground, holding both weapons in his right hand. He wrapped his hand around that wound on his arm again, feeling as if it was hanging by a thread. He pushed himself forward, in the direction of the large wooden patio-like structure in front of the cottage.

He lifted his foot onto the single high step which led up to the doorway after transferring one blade to his left hand and quickly cutting down some forest undergrowth with it. This was the same step on which he was beheaded ten years ago. A chill of unrepentant rage flashed though him as he thought about it, trying to keep his feet steady. But his own execution wasn't even the cause of the vast depths of hatred he held for the government he once served. His knew own life was a moot point the second his amazing combat talent was discovered and he was forced into the military lifestyle. He knew that death was part of the game warriors like him played, especially the ones that attempted to rock the system such as himself. The desire for total retribution was brought about by how they had dealt with _other_ people in his life.

The wall of plants he struck down as he pressed forward seemed to be one more obstacle in his path. They seemed to be there to encourage him to turn back, go find that portal again, and run to the other side of the Sanzu as quickly as possible. But he had already resolved he wasn't living, or unliving, one agonizing moment longer without his soul. If he could possibly find it anywhere.

Getting to the threshold, he stopped and looked at the door, still broken almost in half and thrown carelessly to the side after ten years. The wood was bent and warped, and there was bright green moss growing on it in places.

Entering into the cottage, the floor was rotted out here and there, and the quaint echoing of wood was now replaced by a mushy softness under his feet. Pretty, shade-loving violets grew in the caked-on dirt on the floor now. Puddles of stagnant water were in the corners.

This was where...

...no, he didn't want to think of that yet. He was here to see what he could find useful for himself. He shoved that memory from his consciousness, and started toward the door to the separated back room.

It was all still here yet, after ten years, eerily right where it was placed. The parchments, the brushes, the pots of ink, the various toiletries that were on the low desk to the back of the room, neatly organized. Just like they were before.

Switching both weapons to the right hand was necessary to look around on the desk. Pushing aside a few stray windblown papers with his left, he spied a bit of crimson desperately wanting to remain safe and hidden underneath. His face softened for the first time since he awoke on the raft. He felt a shooting stab in his chest. Picking it up, he knew he had found something important.

He drew in a short breath through his teeth. He held it up to the light filtering in through the decayed window frame. Recognizing what it was, he kissed it softly and then held it to his breast.

He was holding the slightly burned tassel he gave to Little Akiko, twenty-four years ago, when they were both three.

What lovely memories this little red ornament held for him.

Barely at age fifteen, he had quite established himself as Japan's newest unholy fighting terror, slaying the most skilled fighters and the worst demons all too easily for anyone's comfort. Seeing the young man had such natural skill, the daimyo decided in his old age to bestow upon him the gift of any weapon the young man would like...much to the dismay and jealousy of the daimyo's son and Yukio, his third man in charge. They advised the daimyo that keeping him under wraps in the military was fine, but such attention would go to the young man's head. The daimyo disagreed, and made good with his offer of a truly remarkable gift for him.

Bankotsu himself designed and supervised his Banryuu's creation, and after one year and scores of men folding the metal to make the weapon, he had his wish granted. Not being able to tolerate the constrained life in the military, Bankotsu and his now long-time tag-a-long, Jakotsu, decided to quit and struck out on their own soon after, finding powerful men along the way who wished to be their allies.

At sixteen, his connections with the old daimyo who had favored him so much managed to remain somewhat established, and he continued to use Bankotsu's men to secure his power.

Bankotsu was convinced that fighting wars was the only thing he was born for...until he got a very strange request from the daimyo. It seemed there was a prostitute in the area that unwittingly took in an opposing daimyo's spying top officer, and since the officer got himself very, very drunk, the idiot talked about all kinds of things that should have remained secret. Out of fear for her own life and her friends' lives, she approached the daimyo and told him about the plans, figuring if she didn't say something soon and someone found out she knew about it had it come to pass, it would mean all their deaths.

She was thanked dryly, and given a privatecottage in a nearby abandoned village, and a personal guard stationed there for her for the duration of the time it took to hunt the scheming men down. Her financial reward would come after the opposition was squelched.

Bankotsu's men were chosen for the job rather than the military, again, much to the chagrin of his top officers. The men were to assassinate the opposing daimyo, and take down his army. One of the men had to remain behind and guard the girl's life before she herself was an assassination victim, so she could testify to the secrets if needed.

The men decided unanimously that Bankotsu should be the solitary bodyguard, being the strongest out of all the men; in fact, he was stronger than all of them put together. Jakotsu joyously said it would be _absolutely no problem _for them to decimate the opposing forces, and though he didn't like the fact his friend would be stationed with a _woman_, he agreed with Renkotsu that logically, it was the best thing to do.

Bankotsu at first flatly refused. "I'm a mercenary, you fool, not a bodyguard," was his reply.

The daimyo still encouraged him. "Well, I know sheis just a whore, but-'

"That's not what concerns me," said Bankotsu as he, in his typical disrespectful manner, cut off the aging daimyo from speaking. "What concerns me is that this isnot what I'm-"

The old man cut off Bankotsu right back, and, in encouraging him to take responsibility of both tasks, offered him as much money he and his men desired.

Money talked. Bankotsu still somewhat grudgingly accepted, named his price, and ironically, half that amount was immediately thrown on the table in front of him...unlike the prostitute, who was the instrument in saving the daimyo's life. Unbeknownst to Bankotsu, she had to wait an undefined, possibly even a long time before seeing any financial reward.

Bankotsu set out for the abandoned village to the east, where the girl's safe house was located. He knew the rest of the money he wanted would be sent to him immediately when the job was done. And most definitely, he would get rewarded much more quickly than his ward would.


	10. Chapter 10

Authoress' notes: Looong notes, I'm sorry, but stuff has to be explained here.

OK, the reason why I have not updated this story in a few weeks is because I wanted to take some time off to do more reasearch. And I researched this issue TO DEATH. I'm starting to truly introduce my original character in this chapter, and I wanted it done _right_. I ph33r the Mary Sue! LOL. My research has brought me to tell the story this way, and I hope it's successful.

I'll be heavily relying on Bankotsu as he is portrayed _in the manga_, _not_ the anime! The Bankotsu in the anime is NOT the same person as in the manga, and the English translation in the dub further assassinates his character. There are some things in this fanfic that are anime-based only (such as the 1000 human kills) but for the purpose of the story I'll let it in. It's already written, I like it, and I won't change what I've done.

Now that I had time to think about it, I was fascinated by how someone could be so incredibly, immensely physically powerful, yet so...kind and controlled, for lack of better words, and I wanted something to exist that explained that. I think, maybe subconsciously, this is what instantly attracted me to Bankotsu to begin with. I love the way he treats his men, even sometimes for as undeservedly as it is. Maybe the only other thing I'll use from the anime as my own cannon is Ban's fight with Renkotsu, where I believe he was at his (mindbendingly!) finest, as this seems to be one of the few things in the anime that seem to ring true to his personality in the manga.

If you are interested in the sites where I did my Bankotsu research, and would like to know why I characterized him in such-and-such a way, go to the Shichinintai Chaos website and look at "anime vs.manga Bankotsu". Also look up "wot-club" in a search engine. There you can get the manga translations. If you like what you see and appreciate Bankotsu the way lots of other Inuyasha purists do, then...welcome to the dark side. (insert evil laugh here). :)

BY THE WAY...This story has over 300 hits and two reviews. Where is everyone? (hears crickets chirping). Please review!

10/30/05---Chapter edited. Unnecessary capitals sporked.

**Wayward Ransom, Chapter 10**.

Turning away from the decrepit little study room-slash-bedroom, and walking through the leaking partition between it and the main room, Bankotsu stopped to look at for a moment what he missed going into the cottage. On the inside of the threshold, at about his neck level, was a sturdy dagger, halfway impaled into the door frame. It looked like it had been thrown more than once, because there were a number of deep punctures around the same spot on the doorframe. Below it was a small wooden cupboard, decorated with an elaborate woodcut of a phoenix on its top. It had a tiny pull-out drawer, and below that, one door that swung outward. It was completely scratched up on the side by the opening of the door, and was at an odd angle to the threshold as if someone ignored its presence barging in. On the floor next to it was a shallow white dish. The dish was overturned, and Bankotsu knew it had been knocked off the little cupboard many years ago.

Looking back up, he had to chuckle slightly at the knife in the doorframe. He remembered the first time he walked in this little cottage.

He was told to open the door and go right in, which he did after impaling his massive halberd in the ground in front of the solitary step. Most of the time, simply seeing the weapon itself was enough to make an enemy turn tail and run. Sliding the door open and taking in the musty smell of the cottage, which hadn't been used for a while except for the girl that was housed here now, he took a step inward.

He saw the screen to the next room open slightly. He took another step inward, when suddenly, and completely unexpectedly, he saw a flash to his left and heard a sound _thock!_ behind him. When he turned around, there was the dagger impaled in the doorframe. Somewhat immune to pain, he didn't even feel the slight surface cut on the left side of his neck, and turn his blue collar a bit dark.

"Pay at the door! I don't care if you're a soldier or not," said a light, but demanding female voice in the other room.

_Don't care if you're a soldier or not? _thought Bankotsu, confused. _Ahhh. I see. I guess that the only people that know the girl is in this place is the goverment. _He thought it was an extremely strange way to greet someone there to protect her. But he couldn't fault his unseen ward; he guessed that prostitutes had hard enough lives, and most, if not all of them, chose to learn some skills to protect themselves, hence the thrown dagger. While it might work in intimidating someone who had no experience with combat, it didn't even faze Bankotsu. He admitted to himself that he chuckled at the dagger back then, too. But why was she taking customers even _here_? Didn't the old man give her at least a couple yen for saving his neck?

He gruffly answered the voice in the next room. "I'm not here to screw you, I'm here to protect you." He sauntered over to the wall on his left, sat in front of it, and brusquely leaned against the wall, putting his hands behind his head. A long, stiff silence followed. He glanced over and knit his brow at the screen to the next room, which was to his left. He _knew_ that girl was in there. Maybe he could draw her out with some chatter. Maybe he really would luck out and she'd be pretty, too.

He tried again to get a response. "The old man sent me here to guard you until my men finish off another warlord. Sooo...did you meet up with 'im yourself or didja tell one of his lackeys?" He was really out of his element making the first attempt at conversation like this.

His question was met only with more icy silence. This was unsettling. Maybe she was pretty, but she sure wasn't very sociable. From his experience, he knew some girls were like that, and some weren't. Eh. That was their decision. Whatever suited them was fine, and got them through their goddamned day. Just like himself.

He looked around the room for a bit. The cottage was sparsely furnished, now that it was only being used temporarily, but in better condition, it must have had the potential to be a very cozy place. A mural on the wall opposite him depicted a phoenix rising from the ashes, in a similar style to the woodcut on the little cupboard he passed on the way in. The person who lived here before must have been influential and seemed to have had a lot of custom artwork done. On another small cupboard to his right that looked identical to the one by the door, a candle in a lantern was ready to be burned later on that night.

"So..." he spoke again. He _had_ to know what the girl looked like, anyway! He didn't think of getting a good description of her from anyone before he left the old man's place, and the old man didn't really seem to care; he just knew she was escorted to the cottage, and she was alive. And...most importantly, at least in the old man's own eyes, so was he. He knew she had an escort drop her off here, but they must have taken a different way out of the place and he didn't meet up with them, either. Well, either way, she just got here, so there was no room for confusion yet.

"...got any sake?" was his next sorry attempt at some smalltalk. Even though he could often be irresistibly charming, and encouraged his men often, he was usually too direct and quiet to ever be considered a great conversationalist. But Jakotsu was slowly teaching him over the years how to chit-chat. Bankotsu snickered thinking about it. Jakotsu was so much better at that than himself; then he frowned. To the point of distraction quite often, however. He had to be told again and again on the battlefield to keep his mouth shut, and just press forward.

The longer the girl held off in approaching him, the more curious he became. He waited for an answer, and still got none at all. Not a sound came out of that other room. He turned his head to look at the screen, and noticed a wetness on his collar. He wiped it with a hand, and saw a bit of blood. Sure enough, the blue part of his shirt collar was getting dyed dark from the oozing light cut from the dagger, which was still stuck in the doorframe.

Curiosity and necessity finally took over. He couldn't afford to have someone he needed to watch all the time be so standoffish. He got up and walked over to the screen. He knocked and just started to say, "Hey. How-"

The door suddenly opened just enough so a large jug of sake could be thrown forcefully through it. Bankotsu watched the jug with wide eyes as it flew almost across the room, rolled to the opposite wall, _thunked_ loudly off it, and came to a stop after rocking back and forth a bit.

_Umm...okay_, he thought. The jug didn't sound too full. He figured the guards that dropped her off at the cottage left it there.

The screen was just about to get closed shut as Bankotsu impatiently put his foot and a hand into the threshold, preventing it from closing. "I wanted to _ask_ you how I'm supposed to guard you when I don't even know what the hell you _look_ like? How do I know you're not a spy posing as her, damnit?"

He slid the door open, and there was a tiny figure at the far end of the room, who had just silently sat back down. She was smaller than himself, as far as he could tell. She had her blood red, gold trimmed outer kimono covering over her head like a veil, which was fashionable at the time. She had her back turned and was sitting at a low table, using a brush to make delicate, graceful black marks all over a large piece of parchment. Scrolls were neatly piled on the desk in front of her. "Only paying customers can see my face. I told you that!"

He had to snicker. She was intriguing, and her defiance he found kinda...cute. Even without seeing her face. Forcing himself to act serious, he replied in mock anger. "And I told _you_ that I'm not-"

"You're not a customer until you pay me." He saw that she stopped making marks on the scroll. "I'm not taking anything off until I hear money in the bowl. Until then go sit out front or leave, and have a nice day."

"Yeah, by the way, itis a nice day," he shot back. He _was_ good at conversation when he was _defending_ himself, however. "Pretty much means you can't stay pent up in here all day. Why not go for a walk or something?"

She completely ignored him.

"What's your name? Can I at least have your name?"

"If you noticed, I didn't ask for yours. I don't want names, just money."

He hmphed, amusedly. Looking at her tiny, fair hands, he noticed her right hand was now fiddling with something on the desk as she spoke. He couldn't see it before as the door wasn't open wide enough. It was red, and...

...and he was shocked. It was so similar...no way...but it looked just like...

He had to ask about it, but hid the fact that the familar object made his heart race. If that wasn't what he thought it was, it didn't matter. He had nothing to lose anyway. But he still had to know. It was all just too weird. After going completely wide-eyed for a moment, he collected himself again. "Whatcha got there? Looks like a tassel from a weapon."

She was silent.

He leaned comfortably against the threshold between the rooms and crossed his arms and his feet. He closed his eyes. "I've been in the military for a long time. So I betcha I can tell where ya got it, even though those are pretty rare. Ceremonial nodachi. From a small town all the way to the east of here."

Without even looking, he could feel that she stopped twining the red strings between her fingers. He could tell she was intrigued. But she for certain wasn't as intrigued as he was. "Probably even had a green sheath." He spoke a little lower and rested his head against the wall. The fact she was getting really interested in what he was saying was wringing his chest, making his heart beat a little faster. "Probably a bigger weapon than _you_ can carry. Hmmm. Most likely someone else carried it for you." She flattened her hand loudly against the table at his pointed observations.

He opened his eyes again and cocked his head toward her. He continued to speak almost breathlessly. "So...was he someone special? Did he end up using it fer ya?" He made sure to pause inbetween questions, to make them sink in. Make them sink _way_ in. He knew he had her undivided attention. "Did he defend you? Give ya that as a token of friendship?" She couldn't see how fixed his gaze was upon her as he continued. "He still around? If he's not...do you hate him? Or do you...forgive him for...not being able to-" He had to cut himself off, and look away from her, towards the other room.

After another agonizing pause, he heard a sniffle coming out of the cloaked figure. His constant barrage of too-personal questions was really getting on her nerves. Silence carried on for about a second. The cloaked girl slammed her little hands on the desk, quickly stood up, then reformed her hands in angry balls at her sides. "No. I won't turn to you. Why can't you just...leave me alone?" Her light voice started to lose its strength and trembled. "My face is only for customers, not nosy bodyguards!" Her head turned to the side toward him but she still would only let him see her back. "You don't need to see my face to defend me. And it's not like you need my help to hold them down for you or anything."

The last few words stunned him. He remembered when they were three, when she jokingly offered to hold the boys down so Bankotsu could beat them up for her next time they annoyed her. He didn't know whether to laugh or cry at this point. He couldn't tolerate it any longer.

Enough questions! Boldness finally overtook him, and he strided over to her left side to try and get around her. She turned to her right, which was still away from him. Were it not for that curious little ornament she was touching, he probably would have left her alone, and let her sit there shrouded until his job was over. Knowing his men, he wouldn't need to be there very long anyway.

With a flash, a metallic sound rang out by her left hip, and she brought her wakazashi down in her right hand, trying to jab his chest.

However, Bankotsu was just too beyond this. He even had time to roll his eyes as he saw the blade coming at him. She was absolutely no match for him. He easily caught the weapon between his palms, and with a strong flick of his hands, effortlessly disarmed the girl, the wakazashi ending up thrown into a far corner with a _clang!_. She growled in frustration and tried desperately to fight him, but he already had both of her hands behind her back, pinning them to her and stopping her from moving with one arm.

He was even more cocky...and curious...now than ever. Now that she was so close, he could clearly see how petite she really was. The top of her head really, really tried to reach the middle of the bridge of Bankotsu's nose and barely accomplished that. She could have easily been mistaken for a young child.

She uselessly continued to try and break free from his iron grip. She whimpered not from pain, but utter fury while he spoke. He could feel some kind of strange formations on her forearms through the fabric she wore as his hands held them to her back, his thumb running over them, back and forth. They seemed to continue down to her hands. He made a mental note of it. "Nice try! Gotta give you credit for being pretty fast on the draw, but way too slow on the delivery!" he laughingly said. "I have to say I respect you for at least _trying _to defend yourself! _However_-"

Holding her closer to him to prevent her from getting away, he reached under the kimono-cloak on her head and could feel the side of her face. She struggled one last time, and then gave up, sniffing. He could now see her little red mouth, locked closed in anger, and downturned. He caressed her cheek and she sniffed loudly. He could feel wetness on it, and her entire body went more rigid and cold the closer he held her. Firmly holding her chin with his hand, he continued. "-_however_, I can wait here a _long time _until you let me see your face." He leaned in closer, until he was an inch away from her ear, and whispered into it through his teeth. She was so tense he was afriad she might snap in half. Too bad it had to come to that, but this was...just too strange to be true. "_Believe me. It's not...that...hard_."

The girl stood still and silently, and felt the breath of his words on her ear. He seemed genuinely interested in knowing who the hell she was. He also seemed unusually strong, just as she heard from the guards who were gossiping about who was assigned to guard her. He probably could have just done anything he wanted, especially after getting the knife away from her. But why didn't he do things she expected him to do with her? She did notice that he had an unusual smell...he smelled like...musk...and fine incense, mingling together. What an intriguing scent he carried. But his obnoxiousness, nosiness and the fact that he was touching her without paying pissed her off too much, and she tried her damndest to ignore it. And...she was a bit stuck right now.

The girl tipped her head just slightly toward Bankotsu. He took this as a gesture to remove her veiling kimono from her head and face, because obviously there was nothing else that could've been done. Using his right hand, he slowly pulled it off, and it fell gracefully, almost silently, to the floor. Even her shirts underneath were colorful. They consisted of bright reds and beautiful, elaborate gold foil-like patterns.

He placed his hand on her cheek again, and waited with bated breath for her to look up at him. His patience was rewarded when her eyes flicked to their corners to look up at him, and stayed locked there.

Her strange, almost glowing, yellow eyes.

A soft blush, caused by the fury drawn out by young man's earlier prying questions, covered her cheeks. It made her eyes stand out all the more.

She spied the cross-shaped scar on his forehead. She now knew who he was, too.

Bankotsu's face softened, and he let out a little shocked breath inbetween his teeth. "Akiko..." he sighed. In his utter amazement that his earlier hunch was correct, he neglected to keep hold of her arms with his left hand, and she stiffly brought her arms around to the front, readying one of her hands in order to slap him away.


	11. Chapter 11

Authoress' notes: Thanks RahabsRehab! (sweatdrop.) (laughs stupidly and changes preferences.)

Thanks also to GothGirl04. I appreciate your comments!

**Wayward Ransom, Chapter 11**.

Acting too quickly to let Akiko's slap reach his face, Bankotsu's intense gaze suddenly changed to utter joy, and he laughed out loud. He was overjoyed at seeing someone familiar, and someone he hadn't seen in a long, long time. He happily called out her name again, effortlessly scooping her up off the floor. She yelped in terror as he casually threw her up in the air, caught her, and happily swung her around in a circle. He gently placed her feet back on the floor.

"Akiko! I haven't seen you in so long! I never expected I'd meet you like this!" Bankotsu was thrilled. Still holding on to her as he could tell she could barely stay on her feet from shock, he drew her close. His teeth flashed white in an intoxicating smile.

Little Akiko was so shocked she could hardly say anything. She forgot how angry she was before. She wanted to slap him so badly for being nosy, then for actually discovering who she was. But she just couldn't now. She couldn't make herself do it. Because of what she knew about him, and because of what he did for her well over a decade ago.

All she could do was hold on to his shoulders and scan his face up and down. She really seemed to be drinking him in, though a high degree of fear was still evident in her eyes. "Ban...kotsu...you're...so _different_..."

"Heh. And you're just the same as you always were." He released her and slid his hands over to her arms, holding her hands. "What...happened to get you _here_?"

She tore her gaze away from his face at that question and dejectedy looked side to side. "It's a really long story...Daddy's house had a fire...when he rebuilt, it took all his money, then our crops all got ruined, his business went broke, I set out on my own to help him..." She waved her head side to side, and broke away from him. She backed away as she stared at him fearfully. "And you...I heard the soldiers talking about you. They said that they were terrified of you. You're in the Band of Seven? You're...their _leader_? How did you...? I thought your parents said you went away to the military? You wanted to be a soldier? I don't remember anything at all, though, except that it was all so sudden..."

_Huh, so that's what people think happened_, thought Bankotsu. He leaned casually against the doorframe again and crossed his arms and legs. His face slightly became bittered as he spoke. "Yeah, I was in the military. I was continually trained for over twelve years. A few months ago I decided that the military..." He searched for the right word to say. "Sucked," he said finally. He painfully looked away from her briefly again. He turned back, and suddenly his face brightened, and his cocky half-smirk returned. "I needed to do things my own way. So I dragged my buddy Jakotsu along and we met up with some pretty powerful fighters along the way. We began hiring ourselves out, and pretty soon the daimyos, especially the one I was trained under, had us doing their crapwork for them." His grin broadened. "Even in place of their entire armies," he added, chuckling.

"Wow. That sounds like a terrible way to live," Akiko said, trying to sympathize. Her eyes reflected sadness.

He waved her off. "Nah. My men make it all worth it. I tripped over practically all of 'em, but that doesn't make them any less important to me."

Akiko looked around worriedly again. She clasped her little hands tightly together again. "I...don't understand...but...I guess it's the same with my friends." She paused for a moment, and her face grew angry. "Daimyos...government. I hate the government. That's why I'm here. That's why I am what I am now. I was so happy working for my father...the government just can't be trusted by anyone. They're all out for themselves."

This wasn't entirely a new concept to Bankotsu, but he laughed anyway. "No daimyo messes with my men and me. They're too busy using us to make sure they hold on to their positions." He grinned widely again. "And paying us _really well_ for it, too." His face softened as he asked concernedly, "Hey. You helped save the old man's neck. You should be getting something, too."

"They'd never give me a dime. They'd just send me back to the brothel and make me work there as a prostitute so I don't cause any trouble in managing their accounts." She took her hands off her face after trying to wipe the tears escaping from her eyes, streaming down her face. "I'm not who I was before, Bankotsu. I'm not the same...I'm not...look at what I am."

He closed the gap between them. Why would he think any less of her because stuff in her life forced her to do what she did? "The knife? Paying at the door? The 'not-seeing-my-face' thing?" He rubbed the small cut in his neck, and smoothed out the now dark purple collar.

"Oh, my! I actually hit something! But...it was you that I hit...I'm so sorry-"

He cut her off with laughter at the thought of her apologizing to him for giving him such a tiny nick. "I can't tell you how many times I've practically been _killed_, Akiko. This is nothing."

She laughed through her tears. "My friends who are still back there told me to do all that. They were concerned I'd get hurt or something. The soldier who told me the assassination plans was my very first customer, so they knew I'd have it rough on my own like this. And since I look sort of weird they said I might have worse customers than anyone else. I'm obviously part _something_, so rough guys would probably think they're messing with something...dangerous." She became silent with the impending thought of it all. And she knew she wasn't "dangerous" at all. Not anywhere near dangerous enough to fight anyone off. He knew that, too.

"And the wakazashi...you don't seem to have been trained much..."

"Bankotsu, I can't hit the broad side of a barn with a halberd." She laughed, and he took this as a cue to allow himself to laugh a bit too. "And I couldn't even pick up the halberd. And you've seen what I could do with a wakazashi. The dagger...I've practiced doing that and flew right out the door almost every time, then I looked dumb walking outside to pick it up." She laughed again. Bankotsu found her laughter quite cute too. Almost as cute as when she nailed him with that dagger earlier. "I'm used to desks and figures and writing..."

She got quiet all of a sudden, and turned around to gaze out the window above the desk for a moment.

"Akiko..."

She turned back toward him. "Yes?"

"Those marks on your arms...?"

She brought her hands up to look at them and examined them for a moment. The raised areas were darker red, and they almost looked like scars from getting burned, or very large raised veins. They twined around her forearms and came down to the nails on her fingers. "Oh, I don't know what they are." She looked at him directly in the face, puzzled. "They appeared after the fire at Daddy's place. They've been getting more prominent as things happen."

Bankotsu noticed something on her face, so he stepped forward to her to examine it. He took hold of her cheek gently, and taking his thumb, moved it back and forth, over a small mark on her cheek. It looked like a scar, and a fairly recent one. Most others probably would have never noticed it. "What's this?"

She looked frightened from him touching her face, then she was frightened at the answer to his question. "From the guy that told the assassination plans...he was really drunk. When I was trying to get away from him so I could tell someone about the plans, he threw a hairpin at me, then passed out. So I was able to get away and tell someone about the plans before more of them came looking to kill all of us."

Still stroking her cheek, Bankotsu flashed a devilish smirk while he gazed at the mark. "Know his name? Where he went?"

She was terrified at the hints he was throwing toward her, and snapped backward, out of range of his hand. "You want to go _after_ him?" she breathed

He shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly. "Sure. I'll kill 'im for you."

Her eyes widened and she looked down at the floor. She couldn't believe how he could be so cold. How he could say something like that so flippantly. "Bankotsu...you really _are_ different now."


	12. Chapter 12

Authoress' notes: Thanks RahabsRehab! (sweatdrop.) (laughs stupidly and changes preferences.)

Thanks also to GothGirl04. I appreciate your comments!

**Wayward Ransom, chapter 12**.

Akiko's guard made her constantly hover between relief, concern, and sheer terror. The gossip she heard about him from the guards who brought her to the cottage rang around her head. Their words about his demonic-level physical power worried her, and to see her old acquaintance so changed was greatly disturbing. To hear about the reputations of those he associated with after quitting the military with was even more frightening.

"Bankotsu?" Akiko pried courageously. "Did they do something to you?"

Bankotsu physically recoiled from her comment. Trying not to be overcome with anger talking about himself or his life in the military or his training, Bankotsu made his way over to the desk where she had been working. He picked up a random parchment and held the symbols up to her. "Is _this_ his name? Huh?" he said with an angry expression.

Akiko was torn again. Now all she wanted to do was laugh out loud, but forced herself not to. The young man that guarded her forced her to feel _so_ many things at once. It was overwhelming.

He noticed that she had a most contorted expression on her face. "Um, no...that says 'Cherry Blossoms and Lilies'. And it's upside down, too," she said from halfway across the room.

After a momentary expression of shock, Bankotsu looked like _he_ wanted to do the running away, this time. He got quiet again, and with a slight reddening of his cheeks, closed his eyes. His face was hot with embarassment as he placed the parchment gently and silently back on the desk.

Akiko leaned toward him, gazing at him intently and his almost irresistible flushed expression. "You...can't read?"

Bankotsu was silent. His cobalt eyes flicked up at her from above his red cheeks.

It was Akiko's turn to get angry. She was starting to understand things about Bankotsu's military life, despite his refusal to discuss it. "I thought...because of your armor that they schooled you too. You're dressed almost like nobility. But they never taught you how to read? All they did was train you and train you and didn't teach you anything like that?"

Bakotsu dodged her questions again by answering with a simple "yeah". He turned again toward the parchments on the desk. "So...what are you writing here?"

"Oh, that's a story I'm working on."

Bankotsu was relieved that his attempt to change the subject worked.

"I started it a while ago when I worked for Daddy, but because of the government bumping me around I had to stop working on it," she continued. "I didn't know how long I'd be here so I figure I'd bring my stuff here and do something fun in the meantime." She gestured towards the outer room, smiling. "The pictures of the phoenix in here really inspired me."

Finally losing the flush in his cheeks, Bankotsu smiled. "Read it to me," he said softly.

Akiko was taken aback at his request. "Um...sure. Let me get the papers together," she quietly said. She padded over to the desk and picked up a few parchments. Bankotsu walked through the doorway to the front room, and before sitting back down, started to make himself a little more comfortable, taking his armor and wrist and shinguards off, setting it away from him near the little cupboard with the candle on it. That heavy stuff, including the Banryuu, was alright for the battlefield, but now it was all a bit much. Even if anyone did attack, he wasn't all that concerned about himself or Akiko getting in any trouble. Yeah, the opposing daimyo could send as many men as they wanted, but he was sure he could take care of however many there would be easily. He had already taken out entire squadrons with his bare hands.

Akiko soon came out of the separating doorway, shut the screen, and sat against it, quite a distance away from Bakotsu, and at a right angle to him. She began telling her story, and soon her guard's eyes were shut and his hands were lazily entwined behind his head.

Not too long after reading what she already had written, she stopped and looked over to the dark young man across from her. She allowed herself to laugh a little bit, as Bankotsu pretty much looked asleep. She figured she'd bored him, decided she'd let him be, and got up on her feet quietly. She was planning on retiring to the rear room and write a bit more.

Suddenly, Akiko heard a slight "hn?" in back of her.

She turned around and Bankotsu's eyes were open, looking at her questioningly. "Isn't there any more?" he asked quietly.

Shocked that he was listening all along, she ruffled the papers in her hands. "There is a little more, but I'm not sure if I'm going to change anything about it or not."

"Oh," Bakotsu simply said.

After a period of silence that neither one found particularily uncomfortable, Akiko nervously looked toward the front door. "It'll be dark very soon. Let's take a walk. I'd really like to get out of here for a moment now that I have someone to accompany me."

Bankotsu immediately got up on his feet, headed over to the door, and slid it open. Akiko appeared behind him, after quickly running back to her writing room to get her outer kimono. She threw it lightly around her shoulders.

They both stopped, and gazed at each other for a moment, though Bankotsu really didn't know what to make of her expression. After a pause, he murmered an "after you," and they both made their way out of the door toward the forested area surrounding the abandoned town.


	13. Chapter 13

**Wayward Ransom, chapter 13.**

They walked for a short distance in silence, which Bankotsu didn't seem to mind at all. However, Akiko felt a need for some conversation, as she continually found herself both intrigued and terrified of him all at once.

She crossed her arms, and her hands disappeared under her outer kimono sleeves. "I...I thought you fell asleep on me back there, which is why I stopped so suddenly."

"I tend to get like that. I'm not smart enough to do what you do. I enjoy listening to stuff like that."

Akiko was taken aback. "It's not about being smart at all! It's about having the right tools to work with!"

Bankotsu chuckled. "I couldn't do anything like that back when we were kids, and I still can't now."

Akiko was frustrated by the fact that he seemed to give up on himself like that. "It's never too late to learn!" she huffed.

Bankotsu turned his face toward her with a smirk. "Well, maybe one day you'll have to start teaching me."

Akiko smiled and let out a tiny puff of air which was supposed to be a laugh. She imagined the ridiculousness of the notion of herself teaching the leader of the infamous Band of Seven how to read!

The girl cleared her throat again. "Your men...what do you see in them? How could you associate with people like that? I...don't understand."

His face turned serious, almost pained again. "Those men saved my life. And they didn't have to do it. I knew what they all were when they all chose to follow me around. A part of me didn't expect a lot out of them, mostly because a lot of them were so used to a completely criminal background.

"But when we were finally formed, we got hired by the old man to crush an opposing daimyo. We were assured that he had no magical resources, and the seven of us were enough to handle his army. We took care of the army in a matter of hours," he said, grinning straight ahead. But his face became pained again quickly enough. "But it turned out that the daimyo we were to kill had a demon secretly working for him. It appeared out of nowhere. The demon transformed...went to shoot a powerful spell against my men..." His face turned away again. "I stepped out in front of it and took the blow. Even my banryuu couldn't block all of it. I fell a long way down. I was knocked out cold and my bum ankle was sprained." He pointed down to his left ankle to illustrate.

He turned toward Akiko again, his face grew passionate, but warm too. "For all anyone else would have guessed, those men could have left me there to die. They were all men who were used to doing exactly what they wanted to do, and nothing else. But instead they fought harder and won, as the demon blew all his energy in that one attack.

"I...don't remember much for a while after that, but I do know from what they told me that for a whole week they put up with one of my men named Suikotsu caring for me. Usually they can't tolerate his gentle side, but they did for me. He was wonderful to me, and they gritted their teeth the entire time. I almost died for them and I don't regret it. I'd die over and over, for any one of them."

The story really made a visible impression on Akiko. She gazed at him, and he noticed that for once her face lost most of that distant fear she had been carrying around with her. Now that the sky was darkening, he could see that her eyes glowed most interestingly in the lessening light. When he was finished with his story, she looked forward as they walked again, seemingly absorbed in thought.

They came upon a tree along the pathway, and each took a seat in front of it, a slight distance apart. Akiko looked toward the darkening sky which was above her and all around her, and thought about the young man that was seated to her left. She laughed a little. "Maybe you're not all that different," she said softly and thoughtfully. After a pause she said, "Would you go in the military all over again? Since that's what started all of this?"

He was silent this time. He picked up a twig from the ground and started fiddling with it.

She cocked her head toward him curiously. "Is that a no?" She had quickly gotten the impression that this was a bad topic to discuss, but she was too curious about where he'd been for thirteen years to just let it go. She might never see him again after he was done with her anyway, so it didn't matter in the long run.

He looked toward the horizon with that same distant, pained expression. "Some things can't be helped."

She resumed talking, the sound of the twig crunching in his fingers in the background. "I don't know if I'd do anything over. I guess I wouldn't mind knowing where I came from. But what's the chance of finding out anything about that?" She leaned against the tree, and looked at her guard again. His hands stopped fiddling with the twig suddenly, and his eyes were shifted all the way to his left. He was staring intently at something.

She closed her eyes and scolded herself. She figured he was annoyed at her prying questions, so she tried to change the subject. "I'd just like to get back to Daddy after traveling all this distance. But being moved around so much, I-"

She had to cut herself off in shock because as she opened her eyes, there he was right in front of her, inches away from her.

He put a hand on either one of hers and pressed them down to the ground. Her hands were quickly turning cold. He looked intensely at her face, and saw that every ounce of fear that was alleviated by hearing about his life had returned. She was wide-eyed and terrified at his severe expression. His eyes briefly settled on that scar on her face, then returned to her eyes. He came closer and leaned against her, pressing her against the tree, pinning her solidly against it. She gave out a little terrified peep, and he pressed in further, running his right hand up the length of her left arm and stopping at her shoulder. He pressed his mouth against her ear, and whispered in it.

"Don't move."


	14. Chapter 14

Authoress' notes: Gosh darn, this chapter was so much fun to write, it was almost sinful. I (heart) writing fight scenes!

Also, I saw Bankotsu's last episode last night on Cartoon Network. Even though they should have made his fights with Inuyasha purely physical (swordfights), which would have been beyond awesome, it was still nice seeing him on the screen for a little longer. Either way, I'm bummed. Please...send condolences to my email address. (sigh.)

But don't forget to review, review, review. I'll take constructive criticism too! People reviewing and saying how much they like the stuff I write encourages me greatly to write more! I have a tendency to cringe every time I hit "add chapter" to this story, ("funny" is so much easier to write! Argh!) so reviews help more than you could ever know.

**Wayward Ransom, chapter 14**.

Akiko stayed rigid in fright as Bankotsu's right hand continued to smoothly run up to her shoulder. He still had her pinned against the tree with his body, his face hidden by her ear.

Quick as lightning, his hand snapped upward, and slapped the bark with a solid sound. His forearm was right in line with her neck. An instant later, Akiko heard a horrifying _thock!_ by her left ear, and felt his body flinch. For half a second, he rested his head on her shoulder, and she could almost sense him gritting his teeth.

When she turned her head towards the sound, she let out a frightened gasp as she saw a blood-stained arrow impaled right through Bankotsu's solid forearm, and well beyond that, an archer readying another arrow.

Bankotsu tore himself away from her, givingthe slightest trace of pain, and searingly looked over his right shoulder, his hand still on the tree. In a small patch of foliage alongside the pathway, he could see at least six other men besides the archer getting up, ready to fight.

One of them looked very angry upon seeing the young man's steely expression. He faced the archer to his right. "Idiot! I _knew_ that guy was the mercenary that was hired to guard that wench!" he said. "Don't you know who that _is_? You were the one who thought it was ridiculous to have so many of us sent here at once!"

The archer nocked another arrow, oblivious to the fury of his comrade's tirade. "He looked too young. And they were acting like lovers."

"Well, I told you that you should have shot **him** first, stupid!" he said, loudly scolding the archer.

_Not having my weapons or armor made them think I wasn't her bodyguard,_ he thought. _So they underestimated me. _His cobalt eyes narrowed._ Good_. He removed his right hand from behind Akiko's head, and pulled it away from the tree. He grabbed the impaled arrow with his teeth and slowly pulled it out of his arm, this time without even the slightest concern, and spat the arrow aside. Akiko grew wide-eyed and turned about ten shades of green watching him.

"Get behind the tree," he quietly ordered her. She scampered around to the far side and watched Bankotsu shoot away from the tree, heading right for the group of men like an animal.

"Wait!" Akiko called to him as he ran right toward the men. "Don't you want some armor? Or a weapon...?"

Not even hearing her, he was halfway down to the men waiting in the shrubbery already.

"...or...anything? Even if it's...just a big stick?" she quietly added, knowing she was talking to no one but herself now. He didn't need any of her concern.

The sleeve of his shirt quickly turning red, Bankotsu raced toward the archer, who by now had a nocked arrow aimed perfectly for Bankotsu's neck.

The archer let the arrow fly, and Bankotsu gracefully stepped aside just in time to dodge it. The arrow continued on and impaled itself in the tree in back of which Akiko hid. Akiko twitched when she heard the arrow strike wood.

The archer's face filled with terror as Bankotsu stepped towards center again and just continued toward him. The archer desperately reached into his quill to get another arrow, but he no sooner brought his arm back before Bankotsu had already knocked the bow out of his hand by pounding down hard on his arm with his right fist. He threw a left straight into his face, knocking the man down to the ground, too.

In an instant, he had the archer's katana, and sliced through the remaining 6 men effortlessly even as they were all leaping toward him. The archer, in a courageous last stand, tried to jump Bankotsu from behind, but all Bankotsu had to do was impale him in a backward stab, and the archer was dead, also.

Three more archers, previously hidden in the shrubbery, stood up, their arrows nocked and aimed at Bankotsu. Bankotsu immediately dropped the katana and picked up the dead archer's bow and three arrows. He nocked one, holding the extras in his teeth, and let it fly, hitting one of the opposing marksmen dead in an eye before he could even release his own arrow. He reloaded the bow in a flash, as it had been beaten into his head that this was the biggest waste of time, and to continue to live, he had do it more quckly than anyone else.

In one motion he dodged the second and third man's arrows and fired twice again, hitting the remaining marksman square in the face.

Akiko heard the opposing daimyo's soldiers shrieking loudly, making terrible sounds until they all stopped moving. It was horrifying.

After the third arrow flew into the last archer, the young man heard a frenzied "Bankotsu!" coming from the direction of the tree. He whirled around toward his right and heard Akiko, who had come to the front of the tree again, shrinking on the ground as two more men ran toward her from opposite sides.

There was no time to waste, as they both almost reached her. The dark young man grabbed two more arrows and simultaneously nocked them, using his bow hand to get just the angles he needed. He let them both fly and each arrow hit one man square in the neck. The men fell over in agony, and soon were also dead.

Bankotsu dropped the bow as three men ran up the small hill toward him. One had a morning star on a chain, the other two held spears. Bankotsu grinned and chuckled. He was just starting to get warmed up, and this seemed to be the last of them! Well, at least he could have some contact this time instead of using arrows. Long-distance warfare was always so _dull _to him.

He finished off the man that reached him first quickly, grabbed his spear, and drove it through the second spear-carrying man after blocking a few times. The man with the morning star threw his weapon, but Bankotsu blocked it with the spear he was borrowing, and the chain wrapped around the pole. Bankotsu, using brute force, pulled on the chain and the man, still grasping the morning star, was thrown toward him. Bankotsu wrapped his arms around the stunned man's neck, and broke it in a split second.The soldierfell to the ground with a heavy thud.

How..._satisfying_.

Sure that it was all over for now, he closed his eyes and placed his left hand on a hip, smirking and inhaling deeply a few times. Warfare was truly like a drug for him. His posture became more relaxed, oblivious to the bottom of his right sleeve, which wasnow covered in redness. Blood fell steadily in large drops to the ground from his still fingertips.

He turned around and, still calmly smirking, gazed partway over a shoulder at Akiko. She was sitting under the tree, but now she was white as a sheet and scared out of her wits. The irresistible, innocent boyish charm she saw on his handsome, dark face as he grinned at her in the bluish twilight belied the fact that he was truly a highly trained killing machine.

At that point Akiko couldn't decide whether to be appalled or amazed. This man, who she knew was somewhow the Bankotsu she knew as a child, had just single-handedly killed a total of _fifteen_ men, using a variety of skills it would take most others decades to learn individually. She didn't know what was more frightening...getting ambushed by so many assassins at once, or watching one man so easily kill them all.

"I...guess you didn't need a big stick after all..." she whispered to herself. She hid her hands in her kimono again, crossing her arms and pressing them to herself.

Still grinning, and with his eyes locked on her, Bankotsu casually walked over to where Akiko was seated beneath the tree. He stopped when he reached her, and stood in front of her for a moment, looking down at her. He noticed how she cringed away slightly. She stared at him with wide-open yellow eyes for a long moment and held her arms to herself tighter.

His face softened, but he was still grinning. He held out his left hand, palm-up to her. He cocked an eyebrow. "Want to finish your walk?"

She couldn't do anything but stare at him. And his outstretched hand.

Sensing her fear again, seeing it in her eyes, his face softened even more and became slightly pained, his lips separating just enough to see white teeth between them. "I am not here to..." He paused a bit, not being able to complete himself. She almost made him feel...ashamed. The first one to ever do so.

Burying the shame as far down as he could, his face hardened again. "You...know perfectly well why I am here." Stubborn persistence was the only thing keeping him from withdrawing his hand. After a long uncomfortable pause, he managed to say, "So. Your walk...?"even more quietly, and even humbly.

She flicked her eyes back and forth for a minute between his dark face and his dark hand, then finally put one of her fair, red-ridged hands in his. He noticed how small her hands were compared to his. His own hands were very large compared to the rest of him. They were almost disproportionately large. In contrast, her own hands were tiny.

She pulled herself up, Bankotsu's hand countering her weight easily. She righted herself very quickly. It seemed she was expecting him to release her hand just as quickly so she could dust herself off, but he held it just a few moments longer than necessary, gazing at her with a searingly intent face. That same haunting, pained expression. She let out a little gasp when he didn't release her hand right away, and his face even more strained for a second again. But he quickly recovered. He let her hand go.

She folded her arms up into her kimono again, but let one hand briefly out to point at the young man's bloody right arm.

"Um...your arm-"

No sooner had she mentioned it than he mumbled something like "eh, _that_," took off his shirt, wiped down his messy right forearm with it, then ripped off the collar going around the neck and down to the waist in one long piece, and in a flash, started twining it around his arm. He was used to doing this.

She studied him intently for a moment, now that he was shirtless. She took in how the last few moments of twilight reflected off him. He looked like his entire torso, especially his arms, were made of solid steel, right down to the tips of his fingers that helped get her off the ground earlier. Each muscle could be seen flexing and relaxing as he moved around to fix his arm. Just like everything else about him, it was frightening and intriguing all at once. She struggled to speak as she watched him patch himself up. "Bankotsu...thank you. Thank you very much."

He said nothing, but flashed another cocky, boyish grin in her direction as he finished tying the knot in his bandage. It was _certainly_ no problem for him. He might have mentioned to anyone else that the price was right for this job, so technically, he didn't need any thanks. But right now, it was getting to be about more than money. No matter how far away she was from him, he could still see that annoying scar on her cheek. And even when she was turned away from him, he knew it was still there.

He was secretly hoping he might have even gotten a kiss to go along with her thanks, just like he did when they were three, but when he didn't, he didn't press the issue. Killing fifteen men was enough of a rush for today, though if the opposing daimyo were to send more assassins, he could just as easily go another round and kill fifteen more, too. And that was _without_ the banryuu.

She looked around and saw the bodies of the other men strewn about, and hugged her arms closer to herself again. "I want to start heading back."

He obliged and swung his bloody, ripped shirt over a shoulder. She was the first to turn toward the cottage, and, not without relief washing over her face, started softly walking back towards it. Bankotsu followed close behind, never letting her out of his sight...just in case.


	15. Chapter 15

Notes: Thank you so much, GothGirl04 and Minko Miharu! (wipes brow)

**Wayward Ransom, chapter 15**.

Akiko came out of the adjoining room and stood by the door. "Your shirt...it's pretty unsalvageable."

She studied her personal guard. He sat on the floor facing away from her, his right side illuminated by the candle to his right as he leaned against the wall, his built arm and torso reflecting the glow of the fire in reddish curves of dense muscle. His left side, the side toward Akiko, looked even darker than usual in the bluish shadow. He sat with his knees bent upward, his wrapped arm and wrist drooped tiredly over one of them. His head was supported by the wall he was leaning against. His jet black braid was brought to the front, and hung attractively over a shoulder, its length reaching the floor. He was studying the flame arising out of the lamp on the little cupboard aside of him. Or maybe, that's what he was looking at, but not what he was _seeing_.

He grinned slightly, saying quietly that it was no problem. He told her that he and his men were paid so well they could probably afford to go into battle in nothing but pure silk every day if they wanted to. Akiko looked away from him. She could easily believe that. Mercenary work, especially really reliable mercenary work, was probably the highest paying job of their time.

After a rather comfortable brief silence, she looked at him again. "You know...what you did earlier? I was thinking about it. It was all pretty amazing."

He said nothing. Instead, he shifted uncomfortably. He surprisingly closed his eyes, turning his face ever so slightly toward the candle.

From what she could see of his face, he wore a pained expression instead of the cocky grin she expected him to have. She could have sworn one corner of his mouth turned down and his brow furrowed further. Just the slightest bit. He wasn't too interested in her compliment for some reason.

She looked away from him for a moment, and crossed her arms underneath her kimono again. "Well, _I _think it was," she said, quietly breaking the short silence. "But I'm sure it all also came to you at a very high price." She slid down to softly sit with her back against the threshold and folded her knees down. "Didn't it?" she whispered.

That observation really hit where it hurt most. He paused for a long time, trying to decide whether to explain himself.

He fidgeted around a bit more before speaking again. "The military...when I was trained...they used spells that were to make me more submissive. I was stronger than all the rest of their men, so they figured they needed a tighter leash on me." He drew in a quiet forced breath, remembering it all in horror. "It worked, and for the longest time. That's why I have my banryuu now. It was a gift from the daimyo who was so pleased with my skills...and especially, my cooperation. But I knew something was wrong when I found out that the man placed second after me in skill, who called himself Jakotsu, never heard of such spells. He just did what he was told, with no conscience and no argument. So they never needed to use any controlling spells on him. And everyone else wasn't strong enough to make the effort of magic worth it. They had other methods of dealing with people like that. Especially when they didn't live up to expectation.

"When it got to the point where they tried not just to subdue me, but to brainwash me...I had enough. I told my plans to Jakotsu that I was leaving and getting away from there. I told Jakotsu that if I had to kill half the daimyo's men to get out, I would have." His perfectly arched brows knitted and his jaw firmed. "_They_ would not be using _me_ any more...soon enough, _I_ would start using _them_." He sighed and his jaw loosened.

"I vowed that if I ever ended up leading a group of men...that I'd never treat them like I or anyone else was treated in the military. They regarded their men like nothing more than pawns. Like dirt under their feet." His eyes shone hot with fury in the low light. "They never mourned for their men, they never _felt_ anything when they were gone. Their men meant nothing to them except how many others they could take with them when they were eventually killed off. I said to myself that I will _never_ do that to my men. Never."

"Very admirable," she said. But she couldn't understand what made him join the military in the first place, having no idea he was forced to go, of course. Maybe, she figured,what he expected was very different from what he got?

"Jakotsu chose to follow me instead of staying. So I took banryuu and Jakotsu and we left for the east. When I had my men assembled, we made our way back west here. The old man was surprisingly still around, and happily used us to fight his wars, since the seven of us were so much better and more efficient than his own army."

"But..you seem to love combat so much-" Akiko said.

He took a deep breath, then whispered. "I do. But it's hard to explain. It's not something that I _do_. It's more like...something that's always there, a slingshot always tensed and ready to snap-" With that, Akiko noticed his left hand clenched tight on the floor. "...and when I have to...I let it go. And it feels...incredible...to just...let it all go," he said with his eyes closed meditatively, and relaxing his hand, reliving that addictive feeling of being in the middle of combat. "That would have been there if I had beenmilitary or not."

After a long pause later, he said, "But I guess what Maemi said so many years ago is true," he continued, opening his eyes again. "I'm a monster. Or I'm something other than human. I've even fought many, many inhuman things which were no match for me. And I've taken hits that would have vaporized all my men at once." His eyes opened again, gazing at the light. "Maybe I'm something even worse than demonic."

"I'll never believe anything like that."

He was incredulous. Of course he was a demon...or at least, inhuman.

"I certainly didn't laugh at what she told you, did I?" She thought about being pinned against the tree earlier that evening, and how maybe, it really wasn't so bad. She couldn't get him being so close to her out of her head. Musk and fine incense. That's all she could think about. Just remembering it was overpowering. She longed to be that close to him again, but her tendency to shrink away from him in fear and confusion gave her enough fear to stop herself. "I didn't laugh for two reasons. One, if I laughed, I'd have been like everyone else, ignorant of how amazing you can truly be sometimes. And secondly, I never saw anything demonic in you. When you stepped in front of those boys for me...well, monsters don't _do_ things like that."

He thought about the things they had discussed since he arrived. He always knew that his defense of Akiko when he was three somehow had a lot to do with where he was now. But he couldn't bear the thought of telling her that. It wasn't her fault. And...how selfish of him not to consider her own fortune the old woman gave her when they were both young. "I think your prediction is still entirely possible." He said quietly, still not looking at her.

She laughed softly. She looked upwards, as if dreamily looking into the sky. "Yeah. One of these days some wonderful man is going to completely sweep me off my feet, support me with everything and take me traveling to all kinds of exotic places." She laughed again.

"It can always happen." When he was reminded of the unfairness of it all, a stab ran through Bankotsu's chest. His happened, and it was terrible. Hers did not. Things should have been wonderful for her. It was wrong.

"Bankotsu...those are just words. Don't put so much heart in them. Mine didn't come to pass, and it doesn't look like it will. And yours certainly didn't either."

He was quietly listening, trying to absorb what she was saying.

She brought her hands out of her sleeves and twined her fingers together. She slightly leaned toward him to emphasize her words. "You see, Bankotsu...it's just as silly for _you_ to have this constant dread over what one person said fourteen years ago...just as it would be equally as silly for me to think my life is going to be absolutely fairy-tale perfect, just as she said it would. It wouldn't be right, because I would always have this resentment within me, and I'd never be able to truly enjoy what I have already. My friends back at the...the house for the girls, for starters. That got booted around with me, and because of me. And just because they had some rough things happen to them and live there, doesn't mean they're not human, too. I'm surprised they don't hate me by now."

"If you didn't truly believe what Maemi said, you wouldn't have been so worried about what impression I had of you when I found out you were here," he said, turning his head toward her slightly. "I know you can't stand what you do now."

She snapped her head away from him for a moment. He was so remarkably insightful. It made her furious.

He grinned again slightly. Most likely, she said the things she did because she had given up any chance of them ever happening. But, as he said before...some things just couldn't be helped.

Either way, he had nothing against prostitutes. Most of the ones provided to him by the daimyo for a quick victory were nothing short of wonderful. Whether they were young and relatively new, or much older than himself and experienced, it didn't matter. He knew everything he knew now because of them, and almost laughed remembering how his first one ever so gently broke him in. However, he refused to discuss them with his men, threatening to crack their heads open if they tried, as some of them had a different take on how they should be treated. But that was their own problem. He was their leader, not their babysitter.

And he had to agree with Akiko. They were all real people, with real lives and real reasons as to how they ended up where they did. Sometimes he was more interested in hearing that than doing anything. He was always interested in what made certain people tick. And in the end, he found that he had no reason to fault them. All he had to remember was how much of a dirty pleasure it was to cut through dozens of soldiers at a time using the banryuu on the battlefield.

With his face falling again to static seriousnes, he did remember that in spite of how wonderful the womenall were...they weren't his own. They refused to kiss, and in spite of it all, the only kiss he had ever received was that silly, awkward one given to him by Akiko when they were three. Which is why he longed so badly for her to do that again. He was definitely not the man foreshadowed in Akiko's fortune, but one kiss would have been enough for him to move on in relative peace. Before she found whoever she needed to make her fortune a reality, of course.

But his lifestyle didn't accomodate for that. Once that first target was eliminated, and that first enemy is made, that was it. You were chained to the lifestyle of a mercenary, and it was a lifestyle you couldn't very well easily quit. They will _always_ come back for you. And that was why it was so important to stay with the game. Keeping up your strength and your skills so you can take down those who would come looking for your own head in return for another's. Hah...not that he couldn't handle whoever was sent after him...it was that it was just a pain. It was constant, and, he had to admit, too draining to try and establish something long-term with someone. It was like mosquitos ruining an outdoor gathering, so badly that the entire party has to run inside to escape them.

Gathering up the nerve to look at him again, she finally spoke. "She told people so many times that she only gave a hint at what could happen, too. Nothing she ever said was written in stone. I've always remembered that."

He took in a deep breath. He couldn't really understand a lot of her thoughts, if that's what she truly believed. But in spite of all the internal conflict on both sides, it was still interesting to discuss them. He found himself to be immersed in thought, desperately wanting to agree with her to make his own fortune go away, but not allowing himself, because it would negate hers. His head leaning back against the wall, she continued to gaze at him until she turned her shoulders to get up, ready to leave the room.

She wondered what was going on in his head, but it was better off right now to let him be. She sighed. "I'm ready to go to sleep. Good night." She was going to her mat in the adjoining room. Slowly she turned, after giving his heavily muscled arms, and his darkened profile, one last long look. She began closing the screen that separated the two rooms.

"Akiko..," he started to say after a long silence.

She turned back toward him, her nearly floor-length hair slightly flowing with her head motion. "Yes?"

"You need to stay close to me tonight."

Well...that did made sense. The threats on her life were real; the opposing daimyo could have another set of hitmen dispatched to the cottage at any time. "I guess so. You're right." She walked back over towards him, sat down a little way away to his left, and leaned on the wall, folding down her knees.

"No, I mean you should stay _close_." He held out his right palm up to her, and she obliged. He started gently pulling on it which made her sort of crawl along the floor in order to keep up with her arm. Her hand was cold. Her long, long hair slid across the floor in a shiny, orange-tinted blanket.

He drew her close to him, pulling her almost roughly to his chest, and she let out a little gasp. It seemed he really wasn't quite used to doing things like this after all. Getting over the initial shock, she rested her head in the valley between his neck and shoulder. His legs surrounded her. They were relaxed, but still bent so his knees were almost at his shoulder-level. Again the irresistible scents of musk and fine incense enveloped her. It was intoxicating.

She didn't know what to make of it and felt her entire body getting all tense again. Her face would have been embarrasingly red in stronger light. The things she saw at her various jobs doing accounting work for brothels didn't mean she didn't get flustered when something like this happened off-hours. Especially with someone she hadn't seen or thought was even alive after fourteen years. And had to admit, was interesting...and, in spite of all she knew about him now, heartbreakingly attractive. The musk and incense were definitely playing on her mind. That and the kindness he did for her when they were children were what truly kept her from being paralyzed in dread of him most of the time. His reputation, his skills, his comrades, his way of life...they were all so frightening.

"I mean, I need to know every move you make. I need to know _exactly_ where you are. I need to be right here in case you're found again."

She forced herself to look into his eyes. His perfect, rough-hewn cobalt eyes.

"The assassins earlier on today came way too close." He leaned back and temporarily hid his cobalt eyes by closing them again. "If they manage to get that close again I'm not taking any chances with your life. I'd rather have arrows or katanas in my arms than in your neck."

"Alright." She leaned on him and he encircled her neck with his arm again. Everything about him seemed to be made of solid steel. She tried to fumble for some words to say. "I guess...you really don't do this very often for the people you guard, huh?"

He sighed again. Akiko's head was spinning from the motion of his chest rising and falling. "I'm never paid to guard people." He lowered his voice almost to a total whisper. "I'm paid to kill them."

Those words made another shiver of terror run through her, just as intense as the thrill she felt when he drew in a deep breath. His saving grace was that she sensed the words were tinged with a trace of sadness. If she had been anyone else and hadn't known him as someone who fearlessly and selflessly defended her in the past, she probably would have ran out of the room and taken her chances with any hitmen who could still have been lurking outside.

Akiko had as sharp a sense for irony as Bankotsu. "And...now I get paid for..." She turned her face toward him, and her lips were on his breast. She brought the other cold hand up to his chest. She sighed, and the effort from the breath took away her desire to finish her sentence. He didn't know what to say, but after gathering himself together again, brought his right hand up to meet her left, and pressed it against himself. It was very, very cold. He brought his other forearm closer to her neck. No one was touching her tonight.

Soon after, it was obvious Akiko was sleeping. He took the liberty of ever so gently turning her face, and gazed angrily again at the pindot mark near her eye. That mark disturbed him. It infuriated him. Arriving at an idea made him smirk, however. It was well within his power to fix all that for her...for a little while. He'll do just that.

As the girl slept, he continued to ponder why he found her so interesting. Would he really do this for anyone else? Or any other pretty girl?

Or was all this attention the rsult of knowing her when they were both small children? Yeah. That certainly was a big part of it. She was always so loving and patient and beautiful as a child...due to the fact that she had wonderful people taking care of her at home. How different she was now, or at least at first impression, when he first stumbled upon her. Though she was still beautiful. And smart. Even when he first laid eyes on that nodachi tassel, he wasn't any longer fooled by her tough act. But life does that to a person. It hides who people truly are. It makes one hard and coarse. Just like it did him.

That's what he was pondering so heavily in the candlelight while Akiko was trying to mend his shirt. He thought about how many times people were just plain assholes. The men dragging him off to live the life of a killer at age three. His parents, who didn't seem to want to deal with their much-wanted little demon for putting him there, completely unannounced. The military men, who, in his training years, tended to gang up, hold him down to the ground and either beat him or try to force themselves on him; he sometimes ended up fighting them off or shedding tears, especially when he was first recruited. And then those horrible controlling spells they used. It all was supposed to make him "stronger".

Yeah, it did make him stronger. It made him one of the strongest, if not the strongest, fighters in Japan. But he knew he'd never be able to start all over and give anyone new the benefit of a clean slate ever again. Never again. His profession even prevented that...always traveling, always making new enemies, always creating even more people that hated his guts and wanted them on a silver platter. He learned that one of the best defenses is to keep to oneself, and another is not to expect too much. Of course, it went without saying that if anyone, including his men, wanted to follow along, that was great, and he'd most certainly die for any one of them in an instant. But his men also knew the price of what they got into when they made the choices they did, and even with them, most of the time, that barrier was always up.

But he felt something he hadn't felt in a long time when he beat those assassins to the ground earlier on that day. That "something" he felt was sort of similar to when one of his men were in immediate mortal danger on the battlefield, and he threw himself in front of them. But this was more refined, more pure, and more delicate. He couldn't say he had any particular attachment to Akiko, only having known her again for so brief a time period...but that scar...continued to anger him so deeply. It was wrong. It was wrong to spoil someone so...lovely. When he had Akiko up against the tree so she'd not make any sudden movements and get herself killed, he briefly looked at that tiny pinprick scar near her eye. When he knew the archers were going to attack, he wanted them dead, for a reason he never had an excuse to use before. Because this was not just a job, and she wasn't just a comrade. Because he knew, as he ran toward them and grabbed their arrows even as they shot them at him, that the girl was something important to defend. She was a link to something kinder and sweeter in his past, coloring his present and making that sweeter, too. He realized how much better his job would be if he could have that much real purpose every time he was hired to kick someone's ass besides the simple sheer pleasure of being able to do it, and being able to do it better than anyone else in the country.

And so, he realized that he desperately wanted to see her again. Even when his men completed their all-too-easy task of smacking down that opposing daimyo, and he technically had nothing to do with this place anymore. He wanted to see her again. And again, and again. The ties to anything he found comforting and familiar had been forcibly ripped from his hands at age three and replaced with a steel blade; he was so infuriatingly busy fighting for his very life, even as a trainee, to seek out anyone he knew from his past. And now, _she_ was dropped in the palm of his hands, instead himself dropping a defeated opponent's gory head on a pike. He had every intention of taking this opportunity of haphazardly "rediscovering" Akiko to its fullest, feeling that it would have been sheer stupidity to let it go. He wanted those ties re-established. For a little while.

Maybe she could teach him some things about writing. He was, in fact, dead serious when he told her he wanted her to teach him earlier that evening. After all, he really didn't like depending on the literate Renkotsu so often for any communications his group needed. Not that he resented his literacy; he just always felt a crushing responsibility to be as able as possible, and his struggle with writing was always painfully embarrassing. He could hardly hold the brushes without crushing them to splinters in his hands.

And he grinned as he thought. Maybe he'd even get a kiss in. Before, of course, he had to give her away to that..._gentleman_...Maemi referred to in her childhood fortune.


	16. Chapter 16

Authoress' notes: Review, review review! X)

10/30/05--Chapter edited. (brandishes the spork again)The out-of-character sentence near the end of this chapter has been sent into pixel oblivion. Again, random words are still getting smushed together, but I seem to have no control over that.

**Wayward Ransom, chapter 16**.

by artisanrox

In the blinding light of the next morning, a knock sounded at the front door that caused Bankotsu to waken first from his light sleep. He undid his arms from around Akiko, who was still sleeping soundly on his shoulder. He awakened her gently, holding a finger to his mouth to quiet her in case the guest's intentions were to find out her whereabouts and cause her harm. She was even more flustered to notice that she had been encircling his waist with her arms all night. However in the increasing daylight it wasn't as easy to hide how red she made herself again discovering it. She blew it off, yawning and rubbing her eyes, thinking that maybe it was just some kind of reaction from being in so much danger the day before.

The knock sounded again, this time a little louder and impatient. Bankotsu, completely absorbed in the sudden anticipation of danger, padded cautiously over to the door. Sliding it open a little at first, until he recognized the entourage in front of the cottage. He was greeted by horses and official looking men from the daimyo sponsoring Akiko's protection upon opening the door all the way. The man at the door was one of the daimyo's higher ranking men, Yukio. He was a more mature man, in his forties, with hair that was turning grey just slightly at the temples, and was not that much taller than Bankotsu. He had a pompous and intellectual, yet resentful air about himself that would either make one intrigued by his intelligence or utterly repulsed by his arrogance.

Yukio handed him an ornate bag full of money, which was Bankotsu's personal share of the daimyo's reward. It obviously contained a "generous" and unasked-for bonus.

Upon seeing Bankotsu bare-chested, and the tiny bit of lipstick on his sternum marking where Akiko had pressed her lips into the day before, he looked down the bridge of his nose at him and raised one side of his upper lip. He obviously thought a lot more went on than actually happened. Things that wouldn't have been any of his business, anyway, even if they did happen.

"With regards from the daimyo, sir. Here is the rest of your reward. Your men have eliminated both the opposing daimyo and his men in no time at all. Quite..._frightening_, actually. And you have guarded the whore's life." The tiny figure of Akiko showed up behind Bankotsu at the door, and Yukio managed to crack a wry smile in her direction. "Go buy yourself a bedroom full of women like her."

Akiko's face went white with fury at those words.

"You have some kind of a goddamned problem with her?", Bankotsu quietly shot back, cocking an eyebrow. Akiko had something nasty ready with which to retort him, but Bankotsu beat her to the punch.

Yukio's sly smile disappeared at the unexpected, gutteral reproach by the much younger man. He was taken aback that the mercenary would become so...offended...by his words about the woman inside. She was a _whore_, after all. "She is of no use to the daimyo now, she may go back to her disgusting lifestyle. You are dismissed from duty here."

Akiko was appalled, and Bankotsu was furious.

Bankotsu too-casually leaned against the doorframe, lazily supporting himself with an elbow and placed the other hand on his hip. He crossed his feet, smirked and cocked an eyebrow upwards. "You don't seem to know who you're talkin' to." His smirk quickly vanished, and his face became frighteningly deadly, even though he never raised his voice below a menacingly confidential tone. "If you did, you'd just pay me, shut up, get back on your horse and not come back here, especially acting like an ignorant asshole."

Though it took a few moments, Yukio had a few polished, haughty words of his own prepared. "I-"

However, he was cut quickly off by the young man. Bankotsu grinned again, this time even more wickedly. "And another thing. I don't really like being called 'sir'. Way too formal for me. So remember _that_ too. No 'sir' next time I see your ass up at the old man's place. K?"

Yukio was beside himself. He had nothing witty ready for that one. The young man's toungue was as sharp as his precious custom blade. Yukio looked at the girl and said as sympathetically as he could muster, "I'm sorry..._miss_...but I seem to be one bag short. Your reward will be delivered to you promptly."

Akiko frowned angrily at the government official. "Bullcrap," she quietly said, her face barely visible behind Bankotsu's shoulder.

Bankotsu took his hand off his hip for a moment and made the slightest motion backward with it, towards Akiko, in an effort to let her know she needed to keep quiet. He would be more than happy do the talking here. Which caused Akiko to become a bit miffed.

Bankotsu's fury rose again as his attention turned to the official in front of him. "She saved your damned _lives_ and you didn't give her one lousy yen for that yet?" he sneered.

The girl was too smart for her own good, and too much like the cocky mercenary. But...that was all well and good. Yukio always looked down on the morals of mercenaries, but on the other hand...never hesitated to use them, either. He cunningly figured that he could easily have the two of them continually watched for now, at all hours of the day anyway. He suspected the mercenary had some feelings for her to defend her so vehemently. That was, in fact, very fortunate. Yukio knew, for a long time, where this girl was. And he knew she was very, very important to him.

He remembered this while forcing himself to reply calmly. His first priority was to assuage the mercenary. "I will reward her swiftly. I do apologize for that oversight. Now, I must be off. I have an important meeting to attend."

Yukio bowed, turned around, and walked down the single step to his horse. And he then promptly and conveniently forgot about Akiko's reward...again.

Bankotsu and Akiko watched the men ride off to the distance. "Lying sack of crap," Bankotsu growled.

"I could have told him that myself," said Akiko, still furious. She turned around and, with a deep scowl, headed back inside.

Bankotsu fingered the ornate bag of money. He turned his head partway back toward Akiko. "And I'm the one that can rip his head off any time I please. Not you," he said to her over his shoulder.

Akiko opened the door to the rear room as she turned back to him. "You had no business speaking for me." Immediately, she thought twice after telling Bankotsu off. She briefly feared he'd probably kill her for mouthing off to him. He just killed fifteen men on his own, after all.

He was surprisingly perfectly rational. He leaned casually against the doorframe, crossing his arms and legs. He leaned his head back and sighed. His face was almost...kind, and Akiko was shocked when he answered her quietly. However, his eyes were locked on to hers, and they were uncomfortably piercing. She had trouble directly looking into them.

"If I want them pissed off at anyone, I want it to be me. Nothing you or I say will make a difference. It's just that if he retaliates, he can retaliate against me anytime he likes. He just knows he'll be the dead man if he tries, because I'll kill him first."

Akiko sighed. He was right, and it made her even more angry. Being in his presence and seeing all the things he could do made her feel all the more powerless the way it was. And to not have that respect from the officals made her almost envious of him. The officials were why she was in the situation she found herself in.

But in all, he made her stay here rather interesting, even after getting a first-hand glimpse of his terrifying combat experience. She was afraid to admit that she was intrigued by him, in spite of his frightening viciousness and bloodlust, and now, his perplexing gentleness. She figured her brief time here at the cottage really could have been a lot worse.

Leaving the door opened, Bankotsu made his way over to his armor, picked it up, and got ready to help himself out the door. "Well, at least they pay well," he said with a smirk and a chuckle. "Anyway, I'm done here."

Bankotsu made it to the door. Looking out, he saw a soldier in the distance walking toward the cottage. He turned around to look over to Akiko. He saw silent worriment on her face.

"Oh, yeah. Here." He threw the bag of money to Akiko with an underhanded toss and a grin. This was the thing he planned on doing last night. To temporarily fix everything.

Acting on reflex, Akiko had to step forward awkwardly to catch it. After she found her balance, she stood there in shock for a moment, wide-mouthed at what he just did. When she picked up her eyes, he was out the door already. She ran to the threshold and called out to him. He already cleared the single step and was ready to unearth his weapon. His long, almost knee-length braid was quickly becoming a dark streak. It swayed back and forth, brushing against one solid shoulder blade, then the other.

"But...I...!"

He turned around with a huge smirk, the increasing light playing on the muscles in his broad back this time. "And I insist," he said as he picked up his huge weapon and slung it over a shoulder. The soil fell off it, some onto his back, and the blade left a deep, painful-looking scar in the ground. "Eh. I've got so much of it, I hardly know what to do with it all anymore," he laughed, with a wave of his hand. When he turned around the approaching young man now passed him out, still headed toward the cottage.

Akiko was left in the doorway, holding the money and shifting her wide eyes back and forth from it to the young man who gave it to her. She soon undid the red tie, and looked inside it. It was enough for someone like her to live off quite comfortably for at least two years. Those less fortunate might have been able to stretch it out further than that.

Akiko remembered that greasy official saying something about this being only _part_ of the money for the job Bankotsu and his men accepted. Sooo...she told herself that she shouldn't feel _too_ bad about accepting it after all. She lifted her eyes with a silent "thank you" to him, and he responded with a silent "you're welcome".

By this time, the tall, gaunt soldier was at the step himself. Both of them knew what he was there for. Bankotsu stopped for a moment. He had an inkling of what would happen, and wanted to stick around just long enough to see it. Especially when he saw Akiko turn angry, and run inside as she heard the soldier make some disgusting comments to her. Bankotsu placed a hand on his hip and grinned widely.

The soldier disappeared into the cottage. Bankotsu heard the soldier call out more things to her, but he was cut off by a _thock!_ coming from the threshold.

"Son of a ...!" he hear the soldier yell.

It was obvious Akiko didn't need to take any more customers, and successfully used the dagger-in-the-threshold trick to get the point across.

_Definitely a newbie_, thought Bankotsu with a laugh. _And she hit the doorframe too! Hah! Good for her._

The soldier immediately appeared again in the doorway, running quickly away, his face pale and his eyes wide with terror. He almost ran past Bankotsu again on the way to where he came from, but sheer envy made him stop and scrutinize the grinning, barechested, handsome young man with the huge blade slung over one shoulder, and carrying some armor in the other hand.

The newbie glanced at the spot of deep red lipstick on Bankotsu's sternum, then pointed at the banryuu. "If I had one of those damned things, the whores would do whatever **_I_ **wanted them to do too!" Still scowling, he continued walking away at a very fast pace. In no time he was out of eyesight.

Bankotsu turned his head back from the soldier to Akiko, who reappeared in the doorway. He commenced chuckling at any implications the soldier may have meant with that statement. Akiko smiled and laughed a bit, too.

As their laughter died down, Bankotsu and Akiko gave each other a last long look. Akiko disappeared into the doorway, her hair whisking after her, to gather her things to leave.

_Let 'em all believe whatever they want about me, _Bankotsu thought to himself with a smile as he turned and walked away. Right now, he had to get back to his men and find out how they fared.


	17. Chapter 17

**Wayward Ransom, chapter 17.**

Bankotsu found himself holding the red nodachi tassel up to his lips again. It had taken him only a moment to remember everything about his brief stay here...the knife in the door, the pathetic small crew of assassins that Bankotsu defeated single handedly, the pompous official who had not only quickly given him and his men their reward, but who _sought him out_ to do it.

Yeah...and Akiko.

He turned back again to the opened screen to the rear room, and set his eyes on the scrolls that lined the desk in the back room. He grinned. He tried so hard to be able to use things like in that back room--the scrolls, brushes, ink. She tried so hard to teach him.

Soon afterward of leaving the cottage back then, Bankotsu and his men had an extended job keeping some other daimyos in line, who had been so strangely working together recently instead of using himself and his men to tear one another apart. He would have completely forgotten about Akiko had he not needed to continually rely so heavily on Renkotsu so much for any written communications. He never forgot his promise to himself, and his flirtatious comment to Akiko, that he'd enjoy having her teach him how to write. So, when they returned from their near two-month stand, and after getting paid yet another generous reward, Bankotsu swore to himself he'd seek her out.

She wasn't easy to find, though. It forced Bankotsu to be doggedly persistent in his search for her. He had to go to from brothel to brothel, searching out the places he learned she'd worked to find her, asking around for her whereabouts. He had to assure many people he was, in fact, _not_ out to kill her. Whether they believed him or not was a different story. All the time he searched, women either left his presence quickly in fear of him or clung around his shoulders in fascination of him.

He finally found her in a town near the abandoned village in which she was temporarily housed. He thought it was strange she ended up back here and not at her stepfather's place. Once he found exactly where she lived, he told himself he'd come back the next day wearing his finest. He was wearing a rather presentable-looking outfit rather than his usual armor...but when you needed to impress your future teacher, he grinned to himself thinking, hey, you needed to do it in some _real style_. Hell, it wasn't like he couldn't afford it anyway!

He was ready to do a bit of explaining, preparing it all as he walked up to her door. Townspeople who knew about him and his reputation watched him in silent apprehension as he walked the streets and eventually knocked on Akiko's door.

She turned ashen and looked ready to fall over as she saw him standing there after opening her front door. After a few strained, nonsensical syllables escaped from her throat, she finally got some questions out, asking him what he was _doing there_ and_ how in the world he found her?_, while all the while taking in everything about him...from his jet black trousers, to his pure white undershirt, and finally his elaborately gold-brocaded, dark indigo outer jacket. And finally resting her yellow eyes in his own, just for a moment, before embarassment at his sudden presence, and the wild-yet-elegant beauty of his face forced her to look away.

He tried to make a joke about having "connections", who told him he could get some reading lessons, while leaning against the doorframe, and crossing his arms. Even cocking an eyebrow and smirking flirtatiously didn't help, because his joke obviously fell flat on its face when she looked worried about his "connections". So he made a note to be careful about making any more of his usual flippant comments to her. The excuse that she never finished telling him her story went over much better, after he jogged her memory about which story he was talking about.

Akiko said she didin't have time to do anything with the story yet, but she did use the money Bankotsu gave her to start a little silk-dyeing business, something she always dreamed about while sitting at her desk poring over letters and numbers. Seeing some of her beginning custom silkwork only impressed Bankotsu further. She was pretty darn cute, but above all, he loved her mind.

In further conversation, she said she paid off her stepfather's debts just in time for him to pass away one month later. Akiko was sad, but knowing he was with her stepmother comforted her. So she moved back here, where she had more materials easily available to her, instead of staying in her and Bankotsu's rather isolated childhood village back east.

Getting back to some reading and writing lessons, Bankotsu had to encourage her many times that yes, he was serious. He wanted her to teach him.

He began seeing her semi-regularly, in between various lengths of time due to his injuries and his men's battles and random assassinations. What struck him the most about her now is how her arms and hands had changed. He found himself fascinated by them every time she had to push up her sleeves in order to take his hand, showing him how to distribute the ink evenly on the paper. Soon, his curiosity got the best of him, and he insisted on holding one of them, to her utter embarassment. He was fascinated at how they were so much more normal-looking now, the thick, vein-like red lines almost completely gone. She told him they seemed to have greatly lessened in the past two months after he gave her his reward money, and the most improvement was seen when she paid off her stepfather's debts. She said when she became absorbed in learning how to use all the silk dying processes her mentor was teaching her, they lessened to the point where they disappeared.

Many lessons and weeks later, he finally grasped good brush technique, managing to hold the brushes without gripping them so tightly they broke into splinters in his strong hands, and without awkwardly spilling the rather expensive red ink all over the place. He was glad Akiko was the one to see him like this, and no one else, because any attempts to write before made him turn pale, sweat a lot, and shake with nervousness. It was so embarassing for the young warrior. His innocent frustration with it all caused Akiko to giggle at him many times. She even laughingly told him that when she tended to catch the scents of musk and fine incense wafting from the closed front door, she smiled to herself. Because she knew she had to muster up all her patience for the next short while.

Those were some of the best times of his life. He had no qualms about learning something new, but the heat of battle continually made his retention with written language a problem, and Akiko had to reteach him many things after he was gone for a couple weeks at a time. Sometimes, he briefly entertained the notion that he forgot things so often was maybe because _she_ was teaching him. But...on second thought...naaah. He was just compeltely inept with anything involving written language.

And then...it happened. They were both seated, and he managed to write a complete, simple document on his own. He was sooo excited. Forgetting himself for a moment, he did what he knew he shouldn't quite have done...which was lean over to Akiko, looking deeply into her eyes. Which is when he noticed her pupils, by the way. They were slitted, shaped like a cat's, not a human's...which he never noticed until now...now that he was so temptingly, maddeningly close...and then...he gracefully attempted to kiss her.

That fell flat on its face, also. He did too, literally...when she pulled away from him instead of letting him do it. After a few whimpers, she explained that she was warned about welcoming him in. Her neighbors didn't appreciate it, and she wanted to keep it as platonic as possible. Lessons only. He deeply sighed, and lay there on the floor for a second or two. He accepted that, though he never, ever told her or anyone else how heartbroken it made him. They agreed to both pretend it never happened, and soon picked up where they left off, language-wise, Akiko getting paid well by Bankotsu every time for her patient efforts.

His grin disappeared, and he came back to the present, tearing his eyes away from the documents in the back room. His brow furrowed. He was so _angry_ with himself. He ended up forgetting almost everything she tried to teach him after he was resurrected, and couldn't even write a threatening letter to that disgusting bastard young daimyo who had turned on him and everyone else close to him so horribly that day. Renkotsu still had to handle the communications. But...at least he tried to write something down before the rest of his men caught up with him.

He turned his face quickly toward the west, and became a little dizzy again. He exhaled and inhaled quickly and deeply in agony for a while to try and keep the little blood left in his body flowing. He simply wouldn't make it much farther from here without collapsing. He had to slap the doorframe with a hand to keep himself from falling over _right now_, and his arm, his very badly bruised hip, in fact, his whole body, were all begging for mercy.

His heart had to beg for mercy, too...for what happened that day, over there to the west, and here, at this cottage. It begged for Bankotsu to forget it all...it pleaded and whimpered. But to no avail.

Memories came rushing back faster than he could handle now, and it made him angrier...and dizzier, and weaker...

Now that he was so utterly alone, and there was no one and nothing to help distract him from them, they played themselves out all over again.

That _fucking_ daimyo, _damn him _to _hell_.


	18. Chapter 18

Authoress' notes: I went back through some previous chapters and edited them, mostly for using the damned SHIFT key waaay too much. Fixed one totally out of character faux pas in another chapter.

**Wayward Ransom, chapter 18.**

Silence suddenly fell on the battlefield in the mountainous area next to the abandoned village. Or in this case, it would be more apt to call it "the cage", "the trap". Bodies, most cut cleanly in half, and as plentiful as the falling light flakes of snow, lay all around him. He was alone on the battlefield, so very, very alone. He had ordered his men to run, but Bankotsu had remained behind voluntarily. If only he could attract enough attention to himself so his men could get away...

However, they were all separated and missing by now, and Bankotsu was left surrounded in droves and droves of too-subservient archers, angry peasants and mindless soldiers. Cornered all around, he had nowhere else to go.

A signal made to announce someone's approach made everyone freeze out of respect. The approaching important man wanted to confront his prey, as it only made sense to allow the respectable man a few words with him before his prey was killed. Perhaps even let the gentleman do it himself. After all, it was only right.

A shocked Bankotsu saw the daimyo's son, who was also the army's first general, and who had known Bankotsu for so long, approach on a pure white horse. Behind the daimyo's son were more men, including another lower-ranking, middle-aged man that always seemed to follow wherever he went, and stroked his ego, enjoying the bliss of wealth like a lapdog. They were on more white horses, each in more splendid armor than the last. The opposing daimyos, who all along had been gleefully using the Seven to cut one another to pieces, had apparently and suddenly joined forces to orchestrate this event.

Unbelieveable.

Bankotsu looked for the old man's other man in command, Yukio, solely so he would know who exactly to kill after he was done with the lapdog, the old man's son, _and_ every daimyo before him today, if need be. Bankotsu believed in going from the top down...because that's how power worked. Nothing was ever accomplished the other way around. But he could not fathom why the old man would so suddenly have all this done to himself and his men. And he did not see Yukio, strangely...maybe he crawled off and died...or better yet, and most likely, one of his men already had killed him.

The young warrior let the tip of his crimson-stained weapon drop to the ground, out of not only blatant intentional disrespect, but fatigue. He had been battling too many today. There were just...too many.

His heavy breathing became a white mist as it left his mouth. From all the slaughter going on around him, himself taking no mere small part in it, he was surprised it wasn't red mist. He practically breathed in blood right now instead of air, and it soaked into his pores as his red-stained clothing and armor stuck to his skin.

The instant he stopped swinging the banryuu, hundreds of sharp points were delivered to his neck. He stood encircled by drawn weapons, each with their edges outward, each hungry for his blood. A wall of sharp steel. _Ha_. To keep him from running away. _What a laugh_.

Men parted like a wave of water in front of the approaching man on the pure white horse. The horse's elaborate bridle and saddle clinked softly as the horseman silently instructed his steed to halt.

The man eyed the young mercenary and his huge halberd, both covered in blood, and his clothes soaked in it from defending himself. The eyes and dark complexion of the daimyo's son matched that of the mercenary's perfectly. However, even though both the official and his lapdog were almost the same age as the surrounded young warrior, their faces told the tale of consistently being pampered, and having had things handed to them. The one standing on his own, in the center of the circle of steel, had none of that in his countenance.

The mercenary spoke first, astounded. "What's the meaning of all this? Have you gone insane? Has your father gone insane?"

The man on horseback addressed Bankotsu in a most stately fashion. "The need is painfully apparent to crush you, mercenary. You will no longer be a threat to these helpless villagers. I take on the responsibility of dispatching you, which my father left to me when he died. Preparations have been underway for a month already, after many years of watching him fall in and out of illness. Your time has come, and we are the instrument of its arrival."

Bankotsu, also in the most stately fashion, hiding his utter rage at this betrayal, chuckled, and replied calmly. "Don't give me bullcrap, general. You're afraid of us. You're afraid for your position." His voice was loud enough to carry over to the horseman, but controlled enough so it clearly wasn't shouting. Amazingly able to collect himself to speak, his words were totally contrary to the fact that he looked like a blood- and sweat-stained, tired, savage animal. He knew by the timeframe given to him by the daimyo's son that the old man had nothing to do with this. His son, and who knows who else, instigated it all.

The hush was broken as villagers in the crowd whispered among themselves at this suggestion. Hearing them titter, the man on horseback knew the mercenary's response was way too accurate to let him live much longer. But he would certainly be wiping that self-assured smirk off the mercenary's face in no time. "We are afraid you don't know how to handle power very well. So it is necessary right now to forcibly take it from you," calmly said the man.

Bankotsu's voice rose a bit, but he was still utterly unruffled. His eyes never moved from the man on horseback. "We are in no need of your power! Members in the Band of Seven have been in political positions before, and given it up after they see realize the _shithole_ they've stepped into! They have hurled political power out of their tents on its sorry ass!"

"The villagers here are appalled by your unmerciful killing tactics!" The man on horseback unconsciously began to show his temper first because of Bankotsu's cutting words. Which meant...he lost. And the general knew it.

_Ha,_ he chuckled to himself._ He knows I have it all figured out. If my men and I die today, there will be no shame in that. But for that one..._ "Guess what, General? _I_ personally did not tolerate that! You and your troops are the unmerciful ones! We accomplished in one day more than you and your army could accomplish in an entire month! What's better, General? Cutting off an enemy's head in one week, or slowly beating them to death for months, like _you _and your helpless little army of ants?"

"Ants have been studied by warlords for centuries, mercenary! And they know they either take orders or die! They know that they're more effective creatures in the colony than going off on their own, doing as they please!"

"Effective! Kiss my ass! " shot back the young man with the double-edged weapon. "We may only be seven, but I knew what each of my men were doing at all times! And in battles fought for your sake! When I needed to bring order, I did it! I beat their asses, and damn it all, I kept order! Most of my men had a lot of other things in their heads to distract them, and _my job _was to clear it all out! Do you do that for your men, General? Is that why you all paid emperors' ransoms for your dirty work? Because you were too lazy to do it yourself?"

The daimyo's son was unconsciously moving the horse under him back and forth, back and forth. The horse, padding continuously while Bankotsu threw his firey arguments at his former recruiter, seemed to sense how embarrasingly uncomfortable its rider was growing. The man on horseback was getting quite perturbed. This was not a court, where both sides could be heard out! This was a mission to eradicate evil!

"Insolent, unmerciful mercenary! Telling us how to keep order in our own homes..."

Bankotsu ignored him and continued to fire back. "Making sure every single one of your men are trained properly, and taking them and making them into the men they are meant to be. Quality over quantity! That's how you win wars, General! That's how!" He paused slightly. He knew he had the upper hand in their verbal sparring match. He _always_ had the upper hand, and not just using weapons. "Your whole house more than gratefully used us to slash, burn, and roll over your enemies in a matter of days...as opposed to weeks or months...and now we are handed this?"

It was the general's turn to chuckle. "Quality over quantity indeed." He turned back briefly to his fellow horsemen, and they began giving things to him, which he in turn threw at Bankotsu's feet. "These are what I have to _hand_ you."

As the items fell, each hitting the dirt with a distinctive resonant sound, Bankotsu recognized them as Jakotsu's blade, an opened container that once held some of Mukotsu's poison concoction, one of Kyoukotsu's weapons, and one of Ginkotsu's hooked wires. "The last two of you will quickly be killed off in the village near us to where they have run. We can always return those weapons to you, too...if you'd like."

Mind games. There was no end to these mind games! The young man with the bloodied halberd spoke through his teeth. "Bastard! Finish off your witchhunt by dueling with _me_, General! _Me_!" he shouted.

The man on horseback laughed. "I don't need to, mercenary."

"Coward!" Bankotsu bellowed. His patience was at its last now.

"Do you know how to kill a headstrong, uncontrollable young man like you?"

"Get down here and show me, general!"

The general paused for a short time, leaving the two of them glaring at one another. The daimyo's son finally spoke, answering the question he asked without acknowledging Bankotsu's repeated challenges at all. "You kill his soul first."

"Don't speak to me about religion, general!" Bankotsu shot back. "My Banryuu and I will both convince you to pray to whatever particular god you may worship, because once I get this blade into your skull, you'll be praying for an escort across the Sanzu! Weapons will do the talking here!"

The daimyo's son made a motion to the right half of the crowd with his fan. The people silently and obediently parted in a wave, and an outlet for Bankotsu was created in the solid wall of steel. The open path led to the east. The general glared at Bankotsu again, and smiled. He raised his fan, and with it, pointed toward the outlet. "Go and tell that to your _whore_, mercenary."

Not being able to comprehend the general's words at first, Bankotsu narrowed his eyes. When he realized the implications of what the official spoke of, his eyes suddenly widened, and had a glazed, wild look over them which they never, _ever_ had before. He gritted his teeth and gripped his weapon tightly. "You...goddamned...no..."

With an even louder "No!", he broke instantly into a run, heading east. He knew it made no difference at this point where or if he ran or retreated. They wanted his blood, and he knew they were sure to follow him wherever he went.

Banryuu in hand, he ran at break-neck pace in the direction of the abandoned village where Akiko was housed about a year ago.

_She had **nothing** to do with any of this!...With me! Nothing!...**Nothing**!_ was all his mind could repeat, as he desperately ran as fast as he could.

If at any moment in his life he was truly tasted bitter terror in his mouth, it was now. Not because of the lynch mob he had just run through, or the high government official he just insolently disrespected, but for one of the few people on earth he could truly trust, and after all, cared about.

And now he was brought to the present again, teeth bared. He heavily leaned against the broken doorway, gripping both katanas in one hand. With the nodachi tassel firmly held in the other hand, he peered through the overgrown shrubbery still standing. He could not keep back the horrible flood of memories. His body was too broken right now to shoulder them, and he was too fatigued to fight them. They had won. They had taken over, and he made his way, as fast as his hip would allow, to one place he knew he could hopefully cleanse himself from it all.


	19. Chapter 19

**Wayward Ransom, chapter 19.**

"I want you to trouble me...Be my savior, and I'll be your downfall."--Matchbox 20

Bankotsu made his agonized way through light shrubbery, memories of the betrayal still roaring in his head. Using the little reserve of strength he had left to propel one of the katanas he held, he hacked down anything in his way.

Seeing the roughly-hewn small monument in the distance, he stopped for a minute, and noted the gap in the foresty undergrowth to the projection's side. That was the path he had made for himself here before, after first finding this site, which was so close the the cottage he dared not ever discuss or approach. Since his first few visits had happened so recently, the forest had not yet healed itself over from Bankotsu's cuts in the undergrowth when he made his way here before.

As he approached the simple rocky projection, he remembered how Jakotsu silently, but amusedly watched his back for him as Bankotsu knelt before it. He remembered grinding his fist into the ground, steeped in thought, much to Jakotsu's puzzlement. Grief, especially over a woman, seemed to be something foreign to Jakotsu, and was one of the many things one simply could not ever explain to him.

_Jakotsu...I could grieve over losing you, and even that you wouldn't understand._

The two of them eventually resumed the journey which began at the traitorous daimyo's fort in the late afternoon, and ended at the base of the mountain. Reaching the cave's entrance, Jakotsu pestered him to the breaking point about fighting the half-demon himself, and in spite of every logical objection Bankotsu could make, Jakotsu persisted, and wore Bankotsu down until he got what he wanted. And then...Renkotsu...

_Damn it all_, thought Bankotsu as he sighed. _He was a spectacular tactician, a splendid warrior...he had so much potential...it would have been better had he ran. But he became the idiot. A brave, intelligent, ambitious fucking idiot. But...I respect him even more for attempting to stand up to me. And in the end, he was one of mine, and his death was no less important._

Bankotsu, the last member of the Seven remaining, had every intention of taking his compounding, unrelenting sorrow out on the half-demon. And he did...until the half-demon sent him to the shores of the Sanzu.

What a fascinating person this "Inuyasha" was. An incredibly strong, clear-thinking fighter. What was his secret? Bankotsu, bearing no personal grudge, would almost have liked to get to know him, to understand him.

_Huh,_ he thought. _The half-demon. The only one of my targets that ever intrigued me. _Bankotsu, admittedly, had sensed having a lot in common with the half-demon the instant he first saw him. However, there was no hope for any mutual understandings; the circumstances of their meetings had to have been entirely different for that.

Approaching the monument, he noticed Akiko's rusted, weather-beaten wakazashi and its scabbard, still here after over a decade. Even the chain that attached the little charms to the scabbard was still untouched. Bankotsu figured the first time that someone had found Akiko's body in the cottage, and buried it here in an attempt to quell her spirit, placing her poorly-used weapon here also as a marker. Or maybe even a soul-offering, thought Bankotsu with a sarcastic, grunted laugh.

He fell down in exhaustion to one knee, right in front of the stone, and sweat and blood speckled the ground. He closed his eyes, and touched his head to the stone, leaning heavily into it. He placed one of his "borrowed" katanas flat on the ground to his side, and struck the ground with the other, blade-down in an effort to keep himself upright. Soon, he unconsciously started twisting the hilt, grinding the blade's point into the rocky earth, while the betrayal ten years prior continued to gnaw at him.

He remembered how he found his last two comrades' weapons thrown on the single step to the cottage after breathlessly running there.

He stood at the threshold, peering inside the cottage for a moment.

She was indeed here. What was left of her...was here.

Bankotsu took in a horrified short breath as he ran his eyes up and down the broken, naked and bloody body of Akiko lying on the floor, lying on her side, her face toward the doorway. She had bruises covering her from head to toe. Her hair, knotted and unruly, haphazardly covered both herself and the floor. Blood all around her.

He walked quietly over to her, his teeth gritted as he contemplated the audacity of the government. When he reached her, he sat down with his knees to the side, and leaned over her. He ran a hand softly over her forehead, down her temple, to her cheek. She still felt warm to the touch, but the balmy air in the cottage would soon dissipate, and the chill of the snowy air would speed her demise quickly. An agonized expression could be seen under the bruises on her face and blood that ran in a single trickle from her mouth.

Anger over Akiko's treatment added to the blazing fire already begun the instant Bankotsu knew he and his men were set up by that bastard, who was in all respects now, the area's newly anointed daimyo after the death of his father. And now this daimyo was using one of the few people personally connected to Bankotsu besides his men, to aid in destroying him. It worked more effectively than either Bankotsu could ever comprehend or the daimyo had ever envisioned.

He was about to get up, and slaughter every man left alive who was surely waiting for him at the front step of the cottage. For his men, and for her.

"Ban-..."

At first, Bankotsu was in disbelief over what he thought he heard. It was a barely perceptible murmur. Had a spirit talked to him? He looked around, and doubt over the existence of spirits and the like began slowly to reenter his heart. Maybe an animal made the sound outside? No, it was too haunting to be that, either.

He again heard a low, sad, whimpering sound, and when he looked more closely, he saw Akiko's eyes ever so slightly open. "Ban...," she began again, her bloody lips coming together briefly, her voice choking the syllable out in agony, and her hands clenched tightly in pain.

Bankotsu knew they had left her just barely alive purposely. It was all part of the never ending mind games the government and military played with him all his life.

"Akiko..." Bankotsu bent down again and ran his hands over her head and cheek again.

"Ban...kotsu...hold...me..." she whispered, and closed her eyes, preparing for his touch. Even, she said to herself, if it was from the same hands that crushed brushes to splinters and killed fifteen men effortlessly.

The young man could see tears silently streaming down her cheek. He would rather not try and move her. She was too broken. He would cause her more pain than if he simply let her be. Didn't she understand that?

"Akiko...I can't...you're too-" Bankotsu began, glancing up at the painting of the phoenix on the wall to Akiko's feet. That damned painting, which almost a year ago was thought so beautiful, was now silently mocking the two of them.

"Please...I'm...afraid..." she pleaded when she opened her eyes enough to see the young man's face twisted in an expression of shock at her request. If he crushed her, too, that would be fine. At least he was the one to do it.

"Akiko..." Bankotsu shook his head and gritted his teeth. He looked into her tearing, red-rimmed eyes and softly said, "Alright. At your request."

Bankotsu saw Akiko's deep green, brown-trimmed kimono lying in a heap in a corner. He crawled over to pick it up, and reverently draped it across Akiko's form. Holding his breath, and preparing for her to scream, he ever so gently slipped a supporting hand under her side, and picked her upper body slowly off the floor. Her head lolled around helplessly, and though she winced a bit, she never made a sound.

He noticed her arms. The trails on her arms were glaringly bright, scarlet red. All of her nails even looked bloodied, and though some of them were, they also seemed to have a shiny, crimson sheen of their own.

He inched his arms arond her, and softly drew her to his chest. When she finally came to rest between his neck and his breast, she broke down into uncontrollable tears, wailing painfully into his shoulder.

Bankotsu said nothing, and simply held her as she wept, as right now, it was all he could do. His shoulder was quickly getting damper with every tear she made. His fingers on one of his hands were entwined with those of one of hers, and her fingernails were drawing a bit of blood from his hand as they dug into his skin.

He could not speak, and he most certainly could not cry. This was not the time or the place for tears for him. He would express his compounding sorrow by killing as many soldiers and officials as possible after he laid the girl to rest.

"Bankotsu...I'm so angry..." she whimpered inbetween tears. "I'm so...afraid..." she repeated over and over, when she had no tears left to cry.

"Don't be afraid," he found himself whispering softly in her ear. He knew there was that small part of him that could never forgive himself for getting involved with her. It couldn't be helped that his men were lost, though he would avenge them also once he stepped outside. In the back of his mind, he always remembered that any assignment could have been their last, no matter how powerful they had become. And his men were all fighters. They were all people who put themselves _out there_ when it mattered. But he selfishly allowed himself to get close to someone, and that made it all the more possible for the sick and twisted government to abuse that person in an attempt to kill him from the inside out.

She seemed heartened by his encouragement. "You were right, Bankotsu."

"Hm?" he questioned, turning his head the slightest bit towards her ear, humoring her.

"Maemi's fortune..." New tears were pulled from her eyes. "I wanted it all to happen...so badly." She broke down again, as the truth of her admission once again broke though all her defenses. "I was so afraid of you...I regret being...so afraid..."

He tried to hush her gently, but she couldn't be comforted. "This is...my fault..." he stammered quietly as she sobbed on his shoulder. "I shouldn't-"

"No," she whispered, recovering again. "I know you...had nothing to do with it. Others warned me...about you. Over and over. I didn't listen."

Bankotsu gritted his teeth in guilt. There was the proof. It was his fault, after all.

She was finding new found, temporary strength in the strong arms surrounding her as she lay dying. "And I didn't listen because...those people...never did anything for me..." She closed her eyes. "Thank...you...," she began again as more tears flowed from her eyes. "So...much..."

Bankotsu could only hold her closer after hearing her touching words. He knew holding her more tightly would cause her pain, but holding her closer brought the both of them a touch of comfort.

He was so rarely thanked for anything, he almost didn't know what to say when Akiko managed to do it. He always made it a point to thank his men for their loyalty and service often, unlike the military, who saw their soldiers as a disposable resource. But...there was always the question: who would thank _him_? And who would possibly _ever_ have a reason for thanking a mercenary who had been trained to be a killing machine since the age of three?

The minutes passed by as he steadfastly sat there on the floor, holding her. The cottage soon had snow wafting in through the torn-open front door, blown in by a gentle, yet chilling wind. The temperature inside the cottage dropped considerably, and pretty soon the inside was as unforgivingly cold as the outside.

Her fingernails ceased digging into his hand, and forehead soon felt cold to his neck. He could not keep her body warm any longer. She was dead in his arms.

He painstakingly wrapped her in her kimono, as he knew he would have no opportunity to give her a proper grave. After sliding the screen to the rear room open, he took her body into the back room, and laid her on her mat, covering her with blankets. When inside, he took note of the writing materials and other things of hers in the room. She had obviously been here a while. And this was planned a _long time_ in advance.

When he turned to leave the back room, he glanced back at her. She looked as if she were asleep, her blankets and kimono hiding the bruises and cuts on her body, but not her face. He turned from her, and shut the screen. He headed out to the front room, fury seething through every muscle and tendon in his body.

When he stepped out the front threshold, he knew he was stepping outside to die also. He turned around to glance at the inside of the cottage once more, and smirked, almost laughingly, as he ran a finger up and down along the threshold.

"Hn. Unmerciful."

He stood in the silence of the cold air for a few moments before hearing something whizzing toward him. He felt a sharp stinging in the back of his right thigh that made him flatten his hand on the threshold and lean into it, wincing and gritting his teeth for a moment.

He tried to pull out the arrow, but it was no use. The shaft broke into pieces in his hands, and a portion of it remained hopelessly embedded in his muscle.

_So. They've also resorted to poison arrows with me._

He walked in silence over to his huge blade, the banryuu. He heard the soldiers assembling behind him, coming out of their hidden places in the forest. By the time he had his hand on his weapon, he knew there were hundreds there.

_I stepped out of that cottage to die, _he told himself as he grasped the shaft, so _I swear on this weapon that I will not take any less than 1000 men down with me today. _

He turned around, and when the banryuu fell, the carnage began.

And he was up to 999, before the poison, encouraged through his system by the hot activity of killing, forced him down on one knee, never to get back up again. The mindless soldiers swarmed around him like ants, and soon he was beaten, stripped of his armor, and splayed across the single front step of the cottage.

He briefly saw the young daimyo hovering above him, the bastard's face twisted into a pious, dutified scowl. He spoke to some men behind him who could not be seen, pointing at them. "Take his weapon, you, and hang it on our wall." Turning back towards his prey, he grinned. "It'll be our souvenir. Our proof that his life was taken."

"_You...1000!...YOU!"_ Bankotsu hissed through his teeth at the daimyo as he lay on the step.

Then, his head yanked back over the edge of the step...words he couldn't hear said into his ear...and the falling katana...

Bankotsu realized that all the graves he visited never completely brought him to any peace; it never eliminated his hatred of that daimyo and his lapdogs. Bankotsu could honestly say he never hated _anyone_ until that day, and never hated anyone else afterwards.

He continued to mercilessly grind the katana's point into the ground. He bared his teeth, and searingly hot tears started emerging from the corners of his eyes.

And for the first time since he walked on the earth at the age of three, Bankotsu allowed himself to weep. And he wept just like he did at that age. With his head against the stone, the tears continued to roll down his cheeks as he mourned silently, intensely, and for as long as he needed.


	20. Chapter 20

AN: Twenty chapters later, I STILL do not own Inuyasha, or anything in the Inuyasha universe, like Takahashi does. More upsettingly, I don't own Bankotsu. But I do own the first 3 DVDs in the Band of Seven arc now! (displays them proudly!)

12/17/05--song lyrics removed.

**Wayward Ransom, chapter 20.**

The red nodachi tassel, suspended around Bankotsu's neck by the chain he had taken from the wakazashi, gently brushed against the skin on his chest. The tassel hid beneath the shreds of what was left of his shirt, and was slowly getting damp from sweat as its wearer forced himself forward on the side of the road, occasionally stopping to catch his breath.

As Bankotsu stood still, panting, the tassel hung indecisively, seemingly unsure as to whether it wanted to stay close to him, resting safely on his sternum, or try to get loose from the chain and fall to the ground at his feet, where dirt could ruin its brilliant red color and horses could trample it to shreds. Needless to say, for now, it was forced to stay as close to him as possible. When the young warrior commenced moving forward again, the tassel mirrored the motions of his walking, coming close to escaping the few times Bankotsu stumbled to one knee out of exhaustion. He had been mercilessly trained to equal the physical offense of a full demon, but when it came to taking damage, he was still nothing but a very strong human. He knew that his wounds would not heal nearly as quickly or as efficiently as even that half-demon's. This often frustrated him in his first life, and he was beginning to feel the same frustration with his own limits now, also.

_I am equal in strength to that half-demon...and he defeated me. How? How did he do it? What was his secret?_ he thought.

_Damnit_. _I wanted to tear his head off over and over in payback for getting my men killed, and here I am, practically envious of him. _WIth his eyes closed, jaw set tightly, he shook his head as he added, _I can't honor my men this way._

One of his hands now excused from clutching the tassel, he now had the freedom to hold both katanas in his right hand, and clutch his right shoulder with his left hand. His almost knee-length hair blew in the dusty, dry wind, leaving long trails of blood-soaked blackness behind him.

The wind had helped his tears dry quickly, and though they were not the most cleansing thing he had ever experienced, they were still so very necessary. It was in his nature, and not even his training could eliminate that.

He recalled that he almost broke down once right in front of Jakotsu, after the cross-dresser proved himself to be someone who could be wholeheartedly trusted, at least with jewel shards. Perhaps the knowledge that his men, including Jakotsu, were peacefully waiting for him on the other shore of the Sanzu gave him the impetus to break down completely, the permission to mourn so freely.

He had always been like that when alone. It would have been inexcusable in the military, as they had always attempted to train him to be a thoughtless killing machine, easily rivaling a demon's physical power. However, when he had been pushed to the edge by the military officials at age fifteen, his humanity preferred cleaving its opponents in half rather than giving up any shreds of moral dignity he had left by that time.

He had done a lot of thinking at the grave, now having the time to do so. Where would he go now? He seemed to be alive this time, not by the power of a strange jewel or demonic posession, but by the sheer power of his own will.

_And...what am I now? Living? Undead? Somewhere inbetween, just...like that half-demon?_

With his eyes downcast, he wilfully continued placing one foot in front of the other, straining to move forward. He sarcastically laughed to himself through the pain racing through his body.

_Ahh...it doesn't matter what I am. However, I truly have become too strong, _he thought_. I know I said that to the half-demon in jest...but...I see now that it's true. Even hell can't contain me. _

_The only thing stronger than myself now...is that half-demon._

Acutely aware of his own directionlessness, he had to begin somewhere. He restorted to asking himself what he would have done had he defeated the half-demon and his comrades.

He grinned, as the answer was very simple: do everything he didn't have time to do before he stepped foot in the sacred mountain for the last time. Resurrect his men again with seven of the shards he had, resurrect Akiko with the eighth...and resurrect that daimyo with the ninth...just so he and his men may have the pleasure of killing him all over again.

And he'd never have to worry about bringing a favored girl into the Seven's base. All he'd have to tell his men was that he'd rip their hands off if he found one hair on her head out of place, one complaint from her about _anything_...even if they themselves didn't do it. That would solve the problem.

Bankotsu grinned more broadly. Akiko would have been more than welcome to keep those men in line right along with him. Maybe even take a shot at killing the resurrected daimyo, also. However, in their first lives, he had asked her to go to the Seven's base with him, and sample some of the best wine money could buy.

And she refused to accompany him back to their base. He sadly sighed thinking about it.

He never asked again. Once he heard the "no" from her, the issue was settled. However, he couldn't blame her, either. He grinned, knowing her fears of the resulting gossip weren't unjustified. It was hard enough for her to allow him into her house for language lessons.

Bankotsu smiled, thinking about the kiss he almost stole from her. It would have been his first kiss, and he blew it. But at least he got some satisfaction in trying. And that daimyo...killing her...

A twinge of pain quickly made him grunt, holding his shoulder more tightly.

Looking up, he saw walking toward him a fashionable middle-aged woman with salt-and pepper-colored hair holding the hand of her little child. Upon nearing him, the woman silently grabbed her son's hand, brought him around to the opposite side of her, and held him tightly next to herself in apprehension as she eyed the bloodied, wild-looking young man with two unsheathed swords trailing behind him. Bankotsu flicked his eyes up first at the frightened woman, then at the curious, vapid-eyed child, for only a moment, then turned them downward to the dirt at his feet again. Upon passing Bankotsu, the woman stopped holding her breath, picked up her child and nearly sprinted as she disappeared into the horizon.

His brow furrowed deeply as seeing the two of them made him think about his own childhood. He wondered what his parents' motives were for forcing him into the military lifestyle at such a young age. Surely they didn't want him to become what circumstance had made him; it was the military's responsibility for that. He wondered if they were still alive. He wondered if they had changed, or his mother was still the disciplinarian she had always been, and his father the easy-going, wife-doting husband he remembered. The desire to see his home village again burned within him for a brief moment. During his years in the military and even afterwards, he had been so wrapped up in preserving his own life, he had forgotten about any ties to the village in which he grew up.

It made no difference to Bankotsu what they thought of him, however. The only thing he knew how to do well now was kill, and he'd continue right where he left off the last time. Bankotsu was an adrenaline addict; he knew the tendency he had to get a rush from the life-and-death situation of battling a powerful opponent, particularily when he had his men in mind, would never be erased from his personality. He briefly considered that the military had done him a favor in trying to push him too far...at least in leaving the military and becoming a mercenary, he had full control of who to choose as an opponent.

Just like that beautiful undead miko, who he had orders to kill...which he flat-out refused to do. Not only because she wouldn't have been much of a challenge, but also because of the very fact that she was a woman.

Not attacking women, unless backed into a corner by them, was something seemingly ingrained in his personality from birth. They were for other things..like serving wine. Or rubbing oil into strained muscles. Or plaiting his hair when it needed to be done, usually after a long, hot, relaxing bath in a spring. And even though he loathed anyone touching his hair for any reason, he would certainly allow a pretty girl do whatever she wanted with it.

And in time, she could probably do anything she wanted with the rest of him, too. The thought made him release a quick sigh inbetween his gritted teeth. Bankotsu knew one of his weaknesses was that he so often found himself too-easily wrapped around someone else's little finger. In spite of some of the most ruthless actions of his men, Bankotsu considered himself in the palm of their hands. He'd easily die for any of them. He loved being motivated by having something, someone, to die for.

Now that he could dwell on things a bit, he knew he longed for it again. Maybe that was part of the motivation for seeing Akiko so often in his former life...

No, it wasn't. He simply needed to learn how to write.

He knew full well, however, that using prostitutes, like Mukotsu, was simply not his style. Bankotsu had tried that, and developed a terribly strong distaste for it, even though they loved serving him. In particular, the very new ones found in him a welcome relief from more hardened men. In private, his flushed, child-like, inexperienced cluelessness usually endeared him to them. Even the older ones, some twice his age, loved him also.

He snickered. If only his men knew; as close as they were to him, there were a lot of things he was glad they didn't know. But isn't any close family or comeraderie like that?

He wouldn't exactly call the girls mistakes...they were more like stepping stones. Others would probably not have treated them so well, but if he could treat some of the worst criminals in Japan with respect, he could do so with the prostitutes. Hell, he figured, since anyone could end up dead tomorrow, he might as well have made things enjoyable for all parties.

And the older he became, there was no doubt women were easily attracted to him. However, it frustrated him that he always so felt uncomfortable actually having to have to speak to them. The "talkers" among his men, namely, Jakotsu and Renkotsu, managed to loosen him up a bit, breaking through that stony silence with which he had isolated himself so well under his training. And Suikotsu, the doctor, drew him out further by being one of the few people that ever bothered to attempt to help him with his wounds, refusing to allow him to walk around unaided. It was something he never expected when the seemingly one-sided, bloodthirsty child-murderer joined his ranks. Still, in spite of all his men had done for him, he preferred acting twice and speaking once, especially when it came ot women.

In fact, as he continued walking along the road, wrapped in thought, no sooner was he down on one knee again when he had two pretty young girls carrying burderns of rice were bending over him, asking him if he was alright. They pitied him, shifting the poles on their shoulders as they got back up. Bankotsu lied, making up a story about getting attacked by a particularily strong demon, and being on his way to the town to get help from a friend, assuring them he'd be fine. As they walked away, he considered that he would have loved flirting a little more had he not been so injured and exhausted.

What made it so easy to talk to Akiko? It was most likely because their meetings were strictly task-oriented. So used to living with having nothing to his name but his weapon, he rarely asked for or wanted anything in his life, but ever since Renkotsu had joined his ranks, he desperately felt the need to become literate. And since she was literate, he took himself to the task of learning to read and write, and Akiko reluctantly accepted the burden of trying to teach him.

_Stupid Japanese characters...as soon as I learn a new one, I forget what it looks like...they all look alike to me..._

He stumbled along the road, and soon enough, he had to lie again to a pair of soldiers who passed by on his left. The soldiers, traveling on horseback, were concerned with his rough apprearance, but Bankotsu told them the same attacked-by-demons story. He assured them he would not need any aid, and again said he was on his way to a friend's place to get patched up. The soldiers carelessly left him be, blieviung his story. One even said to the other that the young man seemed too weakened to be much of a threat to anyone.

Bankotsu seemed more than capable of lying, it seemed clear.

After all, he lied to that miko about not having orders to kill her. But that was _his_ prerogative as a mercenary.

But he considered that maybe he lied to her about everything else she interrogated him about, too.

_Very smart girl, _he thought as he grinned. _It only added to her beauty._

Forced down on one knee again with a heavy grunt, he dropped one of his katanas. He tried to get back up by stabbing a blade into the ground and leaning heavily on it, grunting frustratedly.

_...damned weak human body... _

_I've been given another chance to get stronger. Stronger then...that half-demon..._

However, his self-resurrected body would not allow him to rise this time, and with an exasperated moan, he collapsed to the ground in a heap.

Minutes later, five shadows slid along the same side of the road. Suddenly, they stopped, looming over the bloody body they had found. A wrinkled, gnarled hand reached down to brush matted hair away from a darkly tanned face.

"Oh, my. What's this? How terrible!" said the concerned matron, her four daughters encircling her as they watched their mother her tenderly stroke the young warrior's dirt-encrusted cheek and neck.

"Attacked by a demon, maybe?" She looked over to her youngest daughter, the comliest out of all of them. "Ima! Go back to the temple and get Masakisho to help us!"

The girl nodded silently, and quickly began running back in the direction from which she came, leaving her mother and sisters to tend to the unconscious figure on the road.


	21. Chapter 21

Authoress' notes: Hm. What do the names I'm using here mean?

Maemi: Mouth of truth.

Masakisho: Masa--good and straightforward. kisho--one who knows his own mind

Raidonichi: first son of Raidon (the thunder god)

Kanaye: zealous

Yukio: one who gets what he wants.

Kodoku: solitude.

Taiyuko: Daughter (-ko), Sun.

Shinyu: God heals.

If you'd like a list of where I got these names from on the Internet, e-mail me. Or something. :P

P.S. I like constructive criticism and also other reviews! Yessiree, that I do.

**Wayward Ransom, chapter 21.**

In the sparsely furnished temple, the chatter of one young girl occasionally broke the silence as the temple guests considered the unconscious young stranger they had brought in a few minutes ago, who was now lying on the floor. His back could be seen clearly after removing his poor excuse for a shirt, to assess his wounds. Allowing him to rest chest-down, his head was temporarily cradled by a pillow, and his perfectly arched brow seemed contracted in discomfort even in sleep.

From his head, layers and layers of long black hair fell, obscuring part of his right shoulder, which was no doubt as covered in cuts as the rest of his back. His broad ribcage could be seen expanding and contracting as he breathed somewhat laboredly. His right upper arm sported a terrible-looking gash. There were no doubt more cuts on the backs of his legs, but it seemed more necessary to allow him some rest. It had been the concensus that moving him around too much could be detrimental right now.

Running her eyes up and down the stranger, Taiyuko couldn't help but giggle. She was the most elegant out of all of her sisters, and was instantly attracted to the stranger when she first laid eyes on him, in spite of his terrible condition.

"He's very beautiful, isn't he, dear Kodoku?" she said before covering her perfect, cherry blossom-colored lips with her delicate hand and giggling again.

Kokodu, who was the eldest, sighed. She reluctantly agreed.

Taiyuko glanced over at her sister, concerned for her sadness. "Dear sister," she said softly. "It's alright to find him attractive. It's not a dishonor or anything. I know it's terrible trying to recover from losing a finacee...but...it's been a long time since you laughed. I just want you to have some fun again."

Kodoku sighed again. She lifted up her eyes to meet her sister's gaze, and smiled. "You're very kind. It's been quite a while. I am wrapped up in my own thoughts too much lately." She turned her eyes to the young man on the floor. She noticed the thickly-built, meaty, calloused hand that rested palm-down near the stranger's head. Considering it looked like that hand could very well crush steel, she added thoughtfully, "I wonder what his story is, though. He seems to be a very strong warrior."

"Yes!" said Taiyuko girlishly. "He's certainly built to be one!"

Taiyuko reached down and, with a few delicate fingers, lovingly brushed aside the sweat-dampened shorter hair covering the young stranger's forehead.

"Huh...a cross-shaped scar," said the third sister, leaning between her two other sisters to see the stranger's forehead more clearly.

Taiyuko smiled, running a finger up and down his jawline. "How interesting!" she laughed. "Makes him even more handsome!"

"Taiyuko."

"Yes, mama?" The picture-perfect girl turned toward her mother, puzzled that her name would be said so sharply.

"You've only said that about ten times since our respected Masakisho and Raidonichi brought him here." She shifted her eyes over her right shoulder at her daughter. "We get the point. So _hush_ about it."

Taiyuko smiled at her mother, trying to assuage her irritation. She tended to become a little more than silly in the presence of a beautiful-looking boy. "Yes, mama."

"And do not touch him anymore."

"Yes, mother," she said more quietly, and even moreso, disappointedly.

Masakisho sat to the left side of the matron, snickering. He turned his gaze back to the wounded young man lying on the floor. His amused expression disappeared, and he narrowed his eyes in thought.

_He looks...familiar. Yes, I have seen him before...but where?_

A deep, low groan was heard coming from the stranger's throat, and one of his eyebrows twiched, drawing itself inward even further. Soon the young man began to move, one side of his lips parted, revealing his gritted teeth. Arms shaking, the young man tried to raise himself, and his efforts caused the three girls to startle backwards a bit. Their mother leaned closer in, concerned, and Masakisho raised an eyebrow.

Managing to get himself partway off the floor, Bankotsu finally raised his head, opened his eyes, and glared at each one of them in turn.

Taiyuko put a hand to her chest in awe, and was ready to breathlessly comment about the young man's looks again. However, since her mother was already clearly irritated at her behavior, she thought the better of it and respectfully kept her mouth shut.

When he looked about ready to collapse to the floor again, the elderly woman shifted forward again, ready to catch his head. "Young man, I don't think you should be trying to get up...you're too-"

"Woman..." Bankotsu raised himself up to sit, and leaned carefully against the wall behind him, trying not to irritate the wounds on his back, and breathing heavily through parted lips. Looking down, he found a thick white sheet covering his legs. "Don't...worry about me, woman," he whispered.

He looked up at the elderly matron. "Was it you...who brought me here?"

"Yes," she answered. "Myself, my daughters, our respected Masakisho and his pupil Raidonichi all had a hand in it."

Looking around again, he caught sight of the girls again, and was regaining enough of his senses to appreciate their lovliness. He gave an exhausted smirk as his eyes moved from one, to the other, to the third. "Hey. Thanks," he said, with compeltely sincere gratitude. "I owe all of you a favor."

_Hmm. An honorable one he is. No doubt about it,_ thought Masakisho. _But I still can't place him._

"Do you have a trade? Or a skill?" asked Masakisho.

Bankotsu leaned even more heavily against the wall behind him, supporting his head against it. His expression turned dark and serious. Closing his eyes, he spoke but one word. "Death."

The room went silent for a few moments, and the three girls near Bankotsu gasped. Their eyes were wide in fear.

However, the matron was unaffected. "Mercenary?" she asked.

"Yeah," answered Bankotsu softly and shortly, with a menacing twinkle in his cobalt eyes. He shot an even darker grin in the direction of the matron. _Old habits die hard...even the second or third time around_, he figured.

He found himself impressed with the old woman. She was quite endearing to him: sharp as a tack, and seemed tough as nails. Those were qualities Bankotsu respected in anyone. "As long as it's worth my time and skill."

The woman humphed. "Yes...I can see it in your eyes," she said, her voice lowering and her eyes narrowing. "Well, young man. You can repay _me_ by taking a trip to the daimyo's place."

"But--Shinyu--!" began Masakisho worriedly. Masakisho knew that Shinyu's age had not diminished her foxy intelligence at all.

Shinyu waved a finger to silence him. "No 'buts'." She turned toward the middle-aged man and warmly laid a hand on his forearm. "You will tell him about the daimyo. And his new monster. And the jewel. Right?"

"Well---I--"

"Don't act innocent, Masakisho. You know you want him dead, too."

Masakisho, lowering his guilt-ridden gaze, went very silent.

"When you fully recover, Masakiso will _certainly _give you anything you'll need," she began again, speaking to Bankotsu, but slyly glancing over to the man next to her. "And he will also fill you in on everything. I'll be back here eventually to see if you've brought something back as proof. His crossbow or his head, either one doesn't matter to me. As long as he's sent to the Sanzu."

Masakisho rolled his eyes. He never, _ever_ would have intended to have anyone assassinated as a result of bringing in an unconscious stranger under his roof.

The fogginess from Bankotsu's head diminished a bit now that he was resting. He was slowly able to see who was furthest away from him. He saw a fair, lithe, strong-looking, lightly armored man, a few years older than himself, sitting casually in one far corner of the room. The armored man gave Bankotsu an unbroken stare, never putting down the pair of odd, sai-like weapons he held in one of his hands. Sitting next to him was a small boy with a bratty scowl on his face. A cute, comely, nervous-looking young girl with bobbed black hair and large, melancholic dark eyes stood by the door.

Twitching his head toward the girl by the door, Bankotsu snickered again. "Who's that?"

Shinyu turned to her for a second, then back at Bankotsu, smiling. "She's my youngest. She ran here to get help from Masakisho and Raidonichi."

"She's way too quiet and shy, especially around boys!" said the third sister.

"Hm." Bankotsu raised a corner of his mouth flirtatiously. "The prettiest."

Taiyuko was taken aback in shock. She knew _she_ was the prettiest! She pouted, and her sister Kodoku stifled a laugh, covering her mouth quickly, amused at how easily miffed her sister became when not fawned over appropriately.

Taiyuko sighed, then looked over at her sister and smiled. She was happy that Koduku was smiling and laughing now, even though it was at her own expense.

The girl by the door flushed scarlet at Bankotsu's compliment, and in utter embarassment, exited the building through the threshold behind her.

Their mother gave the remaining two oldest sisters a sharp glance, and finally turned to Masakisho. "We'd better be going, anyway. I wanted to wait until the young man awakened to continue home."

"You are always more kind than is necessary, Shinyu."

After smiling warmly, Shinyu turned to her three daughters. They all got up, and left. Taiyuko, the last to exit throught he door, made sure to glance backward again toward the handsome young man, only to snap her head forward again, holding her nose high up in the air.

With the departure of the girls and their mother, Masakisho called Raidonichi and his little helper forward.

"You two...go get some bandages and medicine for our guest."

"Hey!" said the annoying-looking little boy to the monk, his fists raised. "Master Raidonichi is training me how to be a true warrior! And I don't believe true warriors should act like nurses!"

Raidonichi laughed at his sidekick, and ruffled his hair. He had been teaching him how to be a true warrior, a true man, for quite a while. The temple regulars always thought the way that the boy, Kanaye, practically worshipped Raidonichi was adorably endearing.

Gazing with an uncomfortable intensity into Bankotsu's eyes, Raidonichi corrected him. "Sometimes, the way to manhood involves not just fighting, but also aiding others." He turned to the little boy with a relaxed smile. "So now we must fulfill our teacher's wishes and bring some comfort to our guest."

"Whatever!" huffed Kanaye, and with that, the two of them left their teacher and their guest alone.

Bankotsu rested his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. It was intriguing to him as to why someone would dare to take in someone like himself--someone who was obviously not the ideal guest to have in one's residence. He was a bloody mess, and he carried two weapons for which he had no matching scabbards, clearly showing that the weapons were not his own.

"So tell me, monk. What's the real reason you decided to take me in?" he gruffly asked Masakisho.


	22. Chapter 22

Authoress' notes: I still don't own Inuyasha or anything in the Inuyasha universe! Also, I'd like to note that sometimes it's annoying not be able to use an ! and a ? together.

**Wayward Ransom, chapter 22.**

Bankotsu leaned more solidly against the wall behind him, and examined his hands. His right hand was covered in little trails of crimson. Both hands were lightly dusted with an odd red substance; Bankotsu figured the powdery stuff was picked up from the haze that permeated the less hospitable places in the Underworld.

"So, you want the daimyo dead for some reason, too. Just like that old woman, huh?" said the young warrior as his eyes rested on the monk.

Masakisho shifted uncomfortably, and stood up, hoping some motion would relieve some of the discomfort he felt in dealing with a mercenary. Bankotsu's searing cobalt eyes continued to glare at him from out of the shadow in which he rested.

"You got anything to do with her?" Bankotsu said.

"N-no, not anything political," began Masakisho. "She is a well-respected sage in this area. I always figured most of her knowledge comes from having four daughters with such different, and sometimes difficult, personalities."

Bankotsu humphed indifferently.

"She...she lost someone very dear to her recently." He turned his back to his guest and walked toward the front screen. "She hates anyone that has any remote connections to the man or his former lord. Her daughter, Kodoku, was engaged to a wonderful man, a man connected to the old woman's family through generations of ancestors. However, he was out on business travelling, and was forcibly taken by the current lord's former boss. It was all a haphazard effort to defend his castle. Kodoku's fiancee was handed a spear with no training and no experience."

Bankotsu rested his head back on the wall, closing his eyes while he listened. He sensed that this sounded all too familiar.

"And all that was because the lord was growing careless. After his father passed away, he kept his family's power for over ten long years. He slaughtered any competition he would sense in the surrounding area, even temporarily joining forces with other daimyos to do it. One day, he stupidly allowed the majority of his strongest men to leave with one of his officers, thinking that no one would dare attack the castle. However, his arrogance proved detrimental. After a few days of their absence, his castle was attacked and in a matter of hours, humiliatingly razed to the ground!"

Finally, this whole story was getting interesting to Bankotsu. "And...his enemy?"

Masakisho turned toward the young warrior, eyes wide with horror. "That's the strange thing! They ripped through the castle so easily, where other armies would take days!" Masakisho looked down at the floor dejectedly, and shook his head. "So many men died that day. Kadoku's fiancee was one of them." He looked up again at Bankotsu. "And it's been the rumor that they were all killed by a group of ghosts!"

Bankotsu's eyes shot open, and he glared at the monk. He scowled deeply, slowly putting together the facts. The fiancee, engaged to the young woman who had just been in the room with him, was killed in the very same battle where the Band of Seven took their revenge against the daimyo that had betrayed them.

Masakisho shook his head again. "I don't know how they did it. That daimyo was so ruthless. He-"

"He was a coward," interrupted Bankotsu, grinding his teeth together. "So easy to kill. Just like all schemers. And all men who hide behind their power."

The young man's words completely puzzled Masakisho. He questioned himself on how the young man would know such a thing.

"He, and all his men, and all his forces. Along with every daimyo in Japan. All cowards."

Masakisho finally put all the clues he had garnered together, terrified at his realization. His face blanched to almost pure white. "No...you're not-"

Bankotsu's scowl melted and a relaxed, dark grin took its place. "Heh, yeah. I am one of those ghosts. I am Bankotsu, the one who you might have heard about. The leader of the Band of Seven. My men and I were the ones who took 'im down, in revenge for deceiving us and takin' off our heads."

"I...I recognized the weapons you were carrying. They are clearly from the Underworld, but I didn't understand-"

"Yeah. I fought my way out," stated Bankotsu nonchalantly. "That same bastard that cornered my men had me trained for a long, _long_ time. Pretty successful, wasn't he?" Bankotsu chuckled darkly, and then lowered his head, a twinge of sarcasm written on his face. "Trained me so well, they can't even keep me in hell now."

"This is...this is really awful..." Masakisho said to himself. Masakisho's day was worsening by the hour, and he rubbed his hands together in worry. He felt so awful for Kokodu, yet...he felt obligated to help her mother, Shinyu, in assassinating the daimyo she hated so much. And the very one to do it was this young man. He recovered from his loss of words, and continued. "The curse has not been lifted yet..."

Bankotsu glared at him with a calm smirk, which worried Masakisho very much. He had heard on numerous occasions about the rumors of a curse involving his men at his resurrection. "No. It_ hasn't_." After quite a long pause, he asked the monk, "So what's his name? I'm curious as to who managed to live this long."

"Yukio," said Masakisho. "After his boss was killed, he returned, built his own castle, and took over right where the daimyo had left off. And now everything is all the worse."

Bankotsu's brow lowered in anger. "Yukio. Yeah, I know that name. He was the only one I didn't find the last time I was there. I figured one of my men dragged him out and tore him limb from limb before I bothered to look in his office."

Masakisho screwed up his face in horror. But he could not resist the notion that a lot of lives would have been more comfortable in the long run if Yukio had indeed been killed that day.

Bankotsu continued on, oblivious to his words' effect on the monk. "Used magic a lot to help 'im finish his dirty work. Bastard."

Masakisho studied the face of the young man. "I just...don't understand..."

"What's there not to understand about me?" Bankotsu asked pointedly.

"The reason I brought you here...was...the tearstains that mark your face. I knew you had to have been through something horrible."

Bankotsu's eyes went wide with shock. He reached for one of his borrowed blades, which were placed close to him. Bringing up the flat of the blade to his eyes, his reflection revealed that indeed, streaks were cut into the red dust that covered his face.

The young man chuckled sarcastically. "That's because...hell's pretty _painful_ this time of year." Bankotsu said as he lowered the blade and turned toward the older man.

Masakisho was still at a loss for words. The young man had been polite, he definitely had a sense of debt and honor...but Masakisho couldn't reconcile the idea that the young man was the leader of a ruthless band of criminals in, quite literally, one of his past lives.

Just then, the front screen opened, and through it stepped Raidonichi and Kanaye.

"Hey, Kanaye. Raidonichi," said Bankotsu. His friendly greeting only served to further confound Masakisho.

"Hello. We were short on medicinal herbs, so we had to go searching for some," said Raidonichi, handing various healing things and bandages to a grateful Masakisho.

Kanaye looked up at his teacher, annoyed. "I shouldn't have to waste my time lookin' for stupid plants! You should be teachin' me how to _fight_!" said the boy.

Bankotsu rolled his eyes irritatedly. _If the kid only knew._

Masakisho offered to dress Bankotsu's wounds personally, but Bankotsu refused with a gesture, and took some long lengths of cloth from Masakisho. Shifting himself caused a shooting pain in his injured hip, and he winced for an instant.

Raidonichi laughed at the boy's ignorance, and patted Kanaye on the head. Kanaye didn't take too well to that, and tried to bat his arms away. "Now, patience, Kanaye. A true warrior has to learn how to tend to his wounds if he should ever have the misfortune to meet someone stronger than himself."

Bankotsu looked at the boy concernedly. He bit one end of a long cotton cloth given to him by Masakisho in between his teeth while fastening the other end to his arm. "And just remember, kid," he said, speaking through his teeth as he sideglanced the boy, "there's _always_ someone out there stronger than you." He finished wrapping his arm, then briefly scowled at it, remembering how that one, the one named Inuyasha, had defeated him. _What was the half-demon's secret?_ Bankotsu almost continually asked himself now. _Why couldn't Naraku defeat him? Why couldn't I defeat him, and at least bring some honor to my men? _

Kanaye was clearly offended by Bankotsu's honest words. "That's stupid!"

"That's reality, kid. Just like lots of things that can't be helped."

"Well, there's no one stronger than my teacher Raidonichi! And once I'm trained, I'll be the strongest man ever!" Kanaye said, making fists.

One of Bankotsu's eyebrows cocked upwards, and a dismissive "yeah, whatever, kid" was said as he continued to attend to himself.

Masakisho dismissed Raidonichi and Kanaye, who promptly left through the front screen. "I must be going myself," he said. "You can rest here until you are-"

"-I'll kill him tomorrow," interrupted Bankotsu.

"But you won't be prepared to do that tomorrow!"

"Monk, I'm 'prepared' _now_."

Maskisho insisted. "You can't just leave. We will need to prepare a weapon for you. The daimyo's phoenix will not be easy to battle."

Bankotsu huffed in annoyance. The hell did he need a weapon for? He could take a demon down with his bare hands. He'd done it enough times already. He could have done it in seconds with the half-demon...but...there was something about that half-demon...

"And preparing the weapon will take some time. Purifying powers need to be added to it. We had a miko pass by here and we recovered some used arrows that contain some of her purifying power. Somehow we might be able to graft their power onto a weapon that would be sturdy enough to defeat the phoenix."

Bankotsu chuckled loudly. Purifying powers indeed. "Monk," he began, with deadly menace in his words, "did I show up at your door looking like some kind of _saint_? Maybe you need to find that Hakushim or whatever-his-name-was to do this for you."

"Well, it will not be easy at all trying to get this purifying power into your weapon...that is why this will take so long."

Bankotsu still had a wide grin on his face, amused that he would be given a weapon with purifying power. However, Masakisho continued to explain himself.

"The stone...you need to know everything about our stone before you recover it. It keeps the monster alive. If the stone isn't taken from it's body, or the other half shattered, the creature could easily be healed or revived. If we graft purifying power into your weapon, it will be one more advantage to you."

"Advantages aren't very interesting to me."

"The purpose of this advantage isn't to upset you. It's necessary. The phoenix is ruthless-"

"I can guarantee that _I_ am even more ruthless."

"No! You don't understand!" Masakisho protested desperately. "We know that the monster is under the control of our stone, which enhances its powers. It's strong, fast, and can use just about any element against you."

Bankotsu grunted in annoyance. It seemed to him that since a weapon upgrade would be necessary, this "phoenix" would be an incredible challenge. Either way, he knew Masakisho was right. He needed a lot of rest before attempting to deal with the stupid bird.

He knew this would not be easy. Airborne opponents always gave him the most trouble, but on the other hand, that's what made them the most interesting to kill. Bankotsu always welcomed the opportunity to spar with a worthy opponent, human or not. Yukio would most certainly _not _be a worthy opponent, but nevertheless, killing him would be utterly satisfying for many different reasons than the bird.

Masakisho rubbed his hands together again. There was so much he had to do now, and there was so much more the mercenary had to know. "Do make sure you stop by the hot spring later on this evening," he said, breaking the silence between the two of them. "Raidonichi uses it quite often, and will probably fill you in on a few things if you see him there, also."

Bankotsu's face brightened. "Hot spring! Hey, now that sounds pretty good. Thanks."

Masakisho thought for a moment. "Would you like Raidonichi and a few backup troops to accompany you to Yukio's castle?"

Bankotsu lowered his eyebrows at the man, offended. "You don't know who I am."

"The villagers are just as angry as you are. You can lead them. Any one of them would be more than happy to take down the daimyo himself. Let them accompany you. It'll be for their sake, if not yours."

"Absolutely not," angrily answered Bankotsu. He paused for a moment, and a melacholic, thoughtful expression washed over his face. "I don't give a crap about the villagers," he said quietly, causing Masakisho to gasp. "They don't concern me. I do this to clear my debt with you and the old woman...and for my men." He looked away for a moment. "And...because it's the only thing I know how to do."

Masakisho was ready to go to another room, but he couldn't help satisfying his curiosity before he retired. "That tassel around your neck...I know I've seen it before."

Still looking away, Bankotsu's eyes narrowed. "Yeah. It's from the grave near the cottage in the abandoned village a little way from here."

"Ahh, yes. But that is not a grave, that's simply a memorial."

"No one is buried there?" Bankotsu turned his head quickly toward his host, shocked.

"No. The girl...the goverment probably took her body and-"

"How did you know about her?" Bankotsu asked in an angry whisper.

Masakisho paused. "I was there. I was passing by that cottage, and heard an awful ruckus. I saw the daimyo's guards stationed all around, escorting villagers away from the cottage, but somehow the daimyo's guards didn't see me. They were driving everyone away from that cottage, and I figured they were up to no good. Then...the girl was in there...I heard everything. I knew then that the awful things I was seeing was partly the government's responsibility. Then I saw you walk in. It was truly awful."

Bankotsu's sarcastic smile returned. "Yeah. We were all cornered like animals. People think that villagers and daimyos and soldiers can't be vicious. They're wrong." He turned toward Masakisho, searing anger burning in his eyes. "That's why_ I _always had to be stronger. My men always had to be stronger. That's why we were so strong together...it was because we all knew that we could never be strong enough."

"I agree," said Masakisho. It was something he'd never say had he not seen it for himself. "That was another reason why I ended up taking you in. I'm hoping that I can help eliminate the curse of the Band of Seven. So everyone can rest in peace."

Bankotsu humphed sarcastically. "My men are at peace now. However, I'm still around." He flashed a wicked grin at Masakisho. "Probably it's to make sure no one does anything stupid and disturbs them. Think so?"

Masakisho flinched, not wanting to answer that question. He continued. "I-- I erected both that memorial and the stone on your gravesite. When it was split in half, I knew we had some terrible curse to befall us. We thought the purifying prayers that kind miko offered for us would help...but..." Masakisho looked dejectedly down to the floor. "So in spite of the pain suffered by dear Kodoku and Shinyu, I feel obligated more than ever to help you."

Bankotsu merely snickered, and humphed sarcastically again at Masakisho's brief display of arrogance. Nevermind, he thought, he had worse done to him in his life than mere words.

Masakisho put a hand to the screen, to retire to a separate room. But before he opened it, he looked back at his guest. "Who was she? I've always wondered. I'd like to know so maybe I could make a more acceptable memorial."

Bankotsu looked away again, his brow knitted. "Someone who...tried to teach me a lot of things...and I was too stupid to learn them," he said dismissively.

"I see," said Masakisho, sliding the door open. "Well, you are welcome to help yourself to anything here in this building. And as part of our debt to you, we will give you anything you desire when you...you..." Masakisho made a disgusted face, unable to bring himself to say "kill the daimyo".

"Yeah, I know. Well, anyway, have a good evening," said Bankotsu, this time with a relaxed smile.

Masakisho shook his head resignedly at his guest's honest concern, opened the screen, and disappeared though it. The young man's strange dichotomy of innocence and killer instinct was too puzzling to comprehend. But to compound that, he was worried also about running into Shinyu...and having to have to do a _lot_ of explaining. He figured he didn't see Shinyu that much, so he would most likely be all in the clear with her.

Or at least he hoped.


	23. Chapter 23

Authoress' notes: I still don't own Inuyasha or anything in the Inuyasha universe!

Thanks to everyone again who is reading and reviewing!

**Wayward Ransom, chapter 23.**

The craggy remains of Mount Hakurei looked like a web made of light and deep shadow in the late morning sunlight. Above the rugged surface, a raven was soaring high in the air, circling around and around, eventually perching on a dead tree nearby. It sqawked obnoxiously, then fluttered its wings.

On the very edge of the distressed ground, a group of six people stood on the sunbathed, soft, grass-covered earth. Raidonichi stood with his ever-present shadow, Kanaye, next to him. Four monk-type men, one of whom was Masakisho, were chanting something, the words incomprehensible to Bankotsu, who had only learned of the mountain's total destruction two days ago.

Bankotsu's jacket, part of the outfit given too-graciously to him by Masakisho, blew slightly in the gentle, warm afternoon breeze. He looked down often at some of the red characters he had just noticed on his new, entirely pure white clothes, trying to decode their meaning. They were scattered here and there; on his sleeves, on the bottom hems of his pants, on either side of the bottom edges of his jacket. It was, admittedly, sheer frustration for him to not know what they meant, but the characters weren't his priority right now.

The light armor between the jacket and his inner white shirt wan't anything fancy, but it would be enough to do what he needed to do, and soon, it would come off. Besides the plain armor, it was a pretty expensive-looking outfit, and that's all that mattered. And when he got compensated for killing off Yukio, he'd buy whatever the hell he'd want.

The young warrior sat alone, on the edge of a long, wide, flat boulder. Unlike the raven he had been watching, Bankotsu was completely disinterested in the whole process of getting his favored weapon recovered from its burial place deep within the overturned ground. He tuned out the droning prayers of the monks, and his thoughts turned back to two days ago, when he had been scraped off the ground by an old woman with four daughters and, afterwards, taken in by Masakisho.

He had spent the afternoon resting, then had taken up Masakisho on his offer of a relaxing hot spring bath later on that evening. Sure enough, after he had limped there, he met Raidonichi, who was just finishing up his own bath.

Raidonichi proved to be a rather strange person. Rather than discussing Yukio and his pet bird, Raidonichi had quickly brought up the subject of women, detailing his constant travails with his present girlfriend, who was also his ward, Kanaye's, mother. Raidonichi tried many ways to pull information out of Bankotsu about his experience, but the younger man wasn't interested in small talk, or better yet, having a philosophical conversation about women. Hearing Raidonichi's list of complaints about Kanaye's mother only reinforced his reluctance to discuss relationships with him.

The only experience Bankotsu had with them, he told Raidonichi, was knowing when it was either too awkward or too fleeting, much to his own chagrin. To attempt to quell Raidonichi's annoying curiosity, Bankotsu recalled that he tried something once with a girl, and simply said that it didn't work out. He mentioned to Raidonichi that the girl was too fixated on business to begin anything. And any others were temporarily amusing, but, in the long run, just...not quite right. Besides, he had been too absorbed in trying to preserve his life since the age of three to think very much about them.

On being pressed a bit, he admitted to Raidonichi that he always thought it would be amusing to have a pretty girl around to give him massages, feed him cherries and pour his wine for him, but the realities of his life left little to no time for relaxing and allowing himself to be pampered, anyway. And sometimes, his lifestyle left him in such a mess, that he often found himself wanting very badly to be pampered.

Bankotsu tired of the subject of conversation, so he tried to get information from Raidonichi about his targets. Raidonichi said he himself had tried to infiltrate Yukio's place before, but found the security to be too ever-present, and had to abort his mission, to Kanaye's crushing disappointment. He had also tried once to gather villagers together, thinking that strength would be in numbers. That proved ineffective, also, because he found that they were more content to sit at the gate of Yukio's castle, complaining about the awful things he did, rather than helping themselves by just storming the castle and killing the hated man.

Bankotsu's thoughts were interrupted by sensing someone's approach. He could tell, even without looking up, that it was Masakisho standing before him.

When Bankotsu bothered to look up at him, he noted the pleased expression on Masakisho's face. "This is going better than we had all hoped," Masakisho said. "Usually, the souls of the dead aren't too willing to do this, so it takes much, much more prayer and supplication for them to act. We were unusually fortunate this time." He looked back at the group of monks, who were finished chanting and were now discussing something amongst themselves. "It would have taken months to dig through the rubble to find your weapon. It would also take an inordinate amount of time to create a weapon to your specifications, considering what you told me about the Banryuu." He sighed sadly and rubbed his hands together in contemplation. "Maybe even the dead realize that sometimes, doing a thing like this is necessary."

Bankotsu chuckled softly. "Or maybe they just wanna drag me back to where _they_ are," he said.

Masakisho's face fell for an instant. Recovering his pleased expression, he continued. "Well, anyway, we don't do this often at all."

A long pause began, and the monk looked at the young man often with honest concern. He had often thought Bankotsu to be too entirely young for his skills and reputation. And even in their brief conversations, it was obvious that there was a lot of boyishness remaining in the young man's heart.

Masakisho now felt driven to know more about Bankotsu. His curious gaze was answered silently with cold cobalt eyes. "I remember you saying," began Masakisho, "that your men were at peace now. So tell me...if there is a way to put your own soul to rest...what would it be? What could anyone possibly do for you?"

Bankotsu's face contorted into a completely confused look.

Masakisho noted the disarming innocence in the young man's face. "If there is anything I can do..." he said quietly, trailing off into silence.

Bankotsu humphed, and scratched his head thoughtfully. "Rest. For _me? _Huh. Never thought about that too much." After a few short moments of searching for an answer, he placed one hand on a hip, and rested the other forearm on a thigh, regaining his too-casual smirk. "Can't answer that. But I know I'll be able to count on you if I ever come up with something."

Masakisho groaned to himself. He thought the solution would be something simple. However, the young man's answer gave Masakisho the impression that Bankotsu had in fact never quite figured out what he wanted out of life...or even unlife. No one had ever asked him the important questions. Perhaps, thought the monk, part of getting rid of the curse of the Band of Seven had something to do more with asking the right questions rather than providing him with wealth and other physical comforts; but it wasn't like he wouldn't be given enough of _those_ anyway after killing the daimyo in power. He almost pitied the young man. Masakisho had a rather blessed past, and it seemed that under his steely demeanor, the young man sitting near him was, strangely, quite used to having nothing.

Masakisho turned back briefly toward the gathering of men at the bottom of the gentle slope. "I have something unfortunate to tell you. I had to tell the rest of the men here about your identity and objective. They should on the most part be silent about it, but you see that one in the white and red down there?" said Masakisho, pointing. "That's Jiro. He likes to run his mouth off. However, I needed him to be here. I don't plan-"

"I don't really care who knows about me," said Bankotsu flatly, cocking an eyebrow and shaking his head slightly. "The faster the word gets around to Yukio that I'm here, the faster he can get to a hot spring and wash his neck before I get to him," he said, one corner of his mouth pulled up in a smirk.

Masakisho flinched. The young man's boyishness seemed to be coexisting with this cold mercenary temperament. Masakisho wondered if this coexistence was, in fact, a peaceful one.

Looking downhill, Bankotsu noticed something odd was going on with Masakisho's friends. The cocky smirk disappeared from his face, as he noticed Raidonichi looking around nervously, his sai-like weapons at an attack-ready position. He was shielding Kanaye, who hid behind him. Two of the monks were on the ground, rubbing their heads in confusion, the other just getting back up to his feet.

Masakisho himself was almost knocked to his feet by a massive tremor in the ground. The only thing that saved him from falling to the ground was sprinting unsteadily over to the rock on which Bankotsu sat, and supporting himself on it. Bankotsu sat on the rock, indifferent to the way the earth shook.

When the tremors stopped, a long, thin crack in the earth was seen a short way from where Bankotsu's left foot rested on the ground. The earth split apart, and when the dust cleared, Bankotsu's eyes went wide open, and he grinned in amusement as his Banryuu was held up from the ground, its shaft gripped by a hand that seemed to be composed entirely of fine soil.

Masakisho clapped his hands together twice, and looked up to the blue sky. "Thank goodness! The spirits have recognized that we needed their aid!"

No sooner had he said this, when the earth quaked again. Another hand came out of the ground. Masakisho and Bankotsu looked on silently.

The hands worked together to raise a complete body out of the earth. The limbs of the body were reproduced in soil, but the fine details remained hauntingly shrouded.

Soil continued to fall from the specter as it awkwardly brandished the Banryuu, and the dust-figure silently brought the weapon horizontally in front of itself.

The point rested an inch away from Bankotsu's neck. The young man didn't even bat an eye.

Masakisho, on the other hand, knew his supplications to the dead had backfired. "Your mercenary past...it has come back to haunt you! No wonder the spirits were so cooperative..." he said quietly, terrified out of his mind.

Bankotsu chuckled, the point of his own weapon still at his neck. "Seems 'the spirits' have recognized _me_, too," he said sarcastically, looking down the broad blade, right into the formless face of what was now his new opponent.


	24. Chapter 24

AN: I still don't own Inuyasha. Or Bankotsu. Sigh. If only I was Rumiko Takahashi. (makes fangirly gazey eyes)

Thank you all so much for your continued support for my story!

**Wayward Ransom, chapter 24.**

Bankotsu glared down the long blade of his weapon as Masakisho ran for his life downhill, meeting his friends at the bottom of the slope. The spirits summoned by Masakisho and his friends not only unearthed the banryuu, but also some extremely angry souls, bodiless spirits caused by Bankotsu's own mercenary activities. Giving themselves form by using dust and soil, they had joined into one entity and brandished their killer's own weapon right at his neck.

The young man grinned tauntingly at the vengeful specter.

"Betcha you really _suck_ at usin' that."

Bankotsu wasnt sure if his words worked in raising the ire of his opponent, but the soil-made fighter pushed forward quickly with the weapon, in an effort to drive its cruel point right through the young man's neck.

But Bankotsu was faster in moving to the side, and dodged it.

"No sense of _humor_, huh?" said Bankotsu, toying with the souls of his former victims. In a flash, Bankotsu smacked the flat of the blade with a fist, sending it upwards, and throwing the soil-fighter to stagger back a step or two.

Bankotsu was about to rush forward when the soil-fighter countered again, using the momentum given to it by Bankotu's hit on the blade. It brought the huge halberd straight down, its edge threatening to split Bankotsu in half.

_"So I guess I have to pick that damn thing up for ya!"_ Bankotsu spat.

The young warrior got up and rolled to his left just in time. The Banryuu flew past his right arm, and struck deeply into the stone in back of Bankotsu, white hot sparks flying everywhere.

Seeing the deep cut the halberd made in the stone, and knowing that it would be no small effort to get it out, Bankotsu took the opportunity to lunge forward, his right fist cocked and ready to deal a deathblow.

Bankotsu swung at the soil-fighter, and plowed his right fist into the fighter's head. Bankotsu, upon making contact with the fighter's hauntingly indistinguishable face, found that it was definitely more solid than it looked.

Due to the force of Bankotsu's blow, soil flew everywhere, landing far away from where the two opponents stood.

The young man continued to rush forward, compelled by the force of his blow, and eventually stopped, a puff of dust following him. His eyes landed temporarily at the monks at the bottom of the hill, who gazed wide-eyed at the young man's abilities. And the young kid, Kanaye, was happily jumping up and down, punching the air, and shouting something excitedly.

Bankotsu shifted his eys to their corners, and threw his right fist into his open left palm. A pause began, during which Bankotsu sensed that he had disabled his opponent. He almost regretted doing away with the soil-warrior so easily..._almost_.

"You're _too_ goddamned slow."

Turning around to deal another blow, Bankotsu had to stop, wide-eyed at the soil-fighter, who was now turned around to face him, with one hand still on the halberd imbedded into the rock. Underneath all that dirt that acted as muscle and skin, was a skull.

Bankotsu had a sickening feeling he was looking at his own skull.

Undoubtedly, the spirits had brought Bankotsu's steely skeleton up to the surface with the banryuu, and were now using as it as a strong framework for the soil-fighter.

In his confusion and shock, Bankotsu stared at the soil-fighter as it quickly and silently repaired itself, drawing soil upwards from the rest of its body, easily replacing what was lost on its head.

In one motion, the soil-fighter flung the banryuu forward, throwing the crescent-shaped sharp edge deftly right at the level of Bankotsu's neck.

Caught almost off-guard at the soil-fighter's display of strength, Bankotsu bent way backward, and the crescent blade stopped a hairsbreadth above the tip of his nose. The soil-fighter continued to thrust and swing the crescent edge at the young man, forcing Bankotsu to dodge in every direction.

The soil-fighter fell back a bit, and Bankotsu took the opportunity to rush forward, hoping to hit the dirt away from the soil-fighter's entire body.

The soil-fighter purposely let its guard down to draw Bankotsu inward; it easily flipped the Banryuu around, bringing the double-edged end forward. It swung the edge of the weapon horizontally across itself, attempting to cut Bankotsu in half at the waist.

With a deep, irritated "_Dammit_!", Bankotsu had no choice but to drop to the ground and roll toward the dirt-fighter. His weapon flew at incredible speed over his head with a deep metallic _whoosh_, fluttering his clothes and the hair at his forehead, and raising a cloud of dust in its wake.

_Hmmm...it never leaves the ground,_ thought Bankotsu, now at the soil-fighter's feet.

Suddenly, the dirt-fighter was jerked backward, dragged by its left side.

Bankotsu saw Raidonichi, who had snuck up behind the dirt-fighter, and had pinned its arm to its own side using one of his U-shaped, barbed, sai-like weapons.

_So that's what those things are for,_ thought Bankotsu.

Raidonichi held the other weapon in his fist while he drove a knee into the fighter's back, and his fist through its head.

Dirt went flying everywhere, including all over Bankotsu. More bones were revealed from the holes caused by Raidonichi's blows to the fighter's torso.

Appreciative of Raidonichi's aid, Bankotsu flashed a warm smile towards him. "Thanks!" he said to his helper.

Raidonichi nodded, grinning back.

The soil-fighter was stunned again, and, as Bankotsu expected, instantly began repairing itself. Laying at the fighter's feet, Bankotsu noticed a soft, golden glow emanating from the very bottoms of the fighter's feet. As he watched closely, he saw the dirt, taken directly from the ground, shift upwards, enabling the apparition to repair itself.

Bankotsu hoped this was a clue on defeating it. He knew that since the fighter could regenerate, there was little hope in winning by sheer force. He glanced over to the large, flat rock he had previously sat upon. If only he could get on there...

Bankotsu grinned devilishly. _Renkotsu, you've taught me more about using my head than anyone else I've ever known._

Hearing a frustrated "_Crap_!" from Raidonichi, Bankotsu looked back up, and saw Raidonichi's face turned from confident to horrified. He realized that the soil-fighter had encased Raidonichi's weapon and hand with its own substance.

Raidonichi was knocked backward by a huge battering ram that flew out of the soil-fighter's back. Landing hard on the ground with a loud grunt, Raidonichi skidded on the grass a short distance before stopping, too stunned to do anything but rub the shoulder he landed on.

"Bastard," hissed Bankotsu at the soil-fighter. The battering ram disintegrated, and fell to the ground with a puff of dust.

The soil-fighter once again drew the banryuu upwards, and came down hard with it. Bankotsu rolled quickly away and back up to his feet as the point of the large bladed edge hit the ground, biting into it deeply.

Bankotsu back-flipped as the soil-fighter swung again. Using his arms to propel him there, he landed cat-like on the large rock, his knee-length braid flipping behind him. Beneath his feet, he could feel the deep cleft left on the rock from the soil-fighter's previous attack with the banryuu.

"So...which one _are_ you!" taunted Bankotsu viciously. "The criminal kingpin I assassinated? The thief whose neck I snapped for breaking into my men's base? The daimyo whose head I took off in repayment for my men? The tiger-demon that the villagers paid me to kill?"

The soil-fighter stood in eerie silence, its eyeless dark face turned toward the young warrior.

Bankotsu narrowed his eyes. "My _interesting_ opponents had a lot more to say than you!"

Once again, Bankotsu had thoughts of that damned half-demon running through his head. He was so different than anyone else he had ever fought. The half-demon almost seemed..._concerned_ about him...all the way up to the end. It had been too quick an end for Bankotsu in Mount Hakurei. Bankotsu fumed how the half-demon had all but refused to raise a hand against him unless it was to pluck a Shikon jewel shard out of his body. It enraged him that the half-demon was kind enough to him to give him such a merciful end, even after offering him to leave unharmed if he wanted. The half-demon gave him an end that some of his men didn't give to others.

Sure, he had derided Inuyasha for being too soft...but in the end, the soft half-demon was the one who ended up sending him on his way to hell.

For an instant, Bankotsu found himself torn. Maybe he _had_ in fact taken his sorrow out on the wrong person?

The immediacy of his situation rushing to his awareness as he stood on the rock, Bankotsu had to shake his head. Why, he wondered, did he think of this crap _now_?

Bankotsu figured that the only time he was allowed to think clearly, to feel alive, was in the midst of battle.

And he'd kill Yukio on first sight for taking part in making that so.

The soil-fighter glared, and on a wave of soil drawn up from the ground, rushed toward Bankotsu at light-speed. Expecting to deal the final blow, the soil-fighter brought the weapon down hard on the rock again from high above Bankotsu.

In an effort to keep the soil-fighter on the rock, Bankotsu turned his body to the side, and the flat edge of his weapon flew past his back. The banryuu was again buried deep inside the rock with a flash of electricity.

The soil-fighter shot Raidonichi's weapon from out of its torso, and again Bankotsu turned his body, moving just enough to dodge it.

"So I did piss you off...didn't I!" said Bankotsu, callously harassing his opponent.

Bankotsu rushed forward, and punched the soil-fighter solidly in its torso.

The soil-fighter was stunned, and Bankotsu stared hard into its formless face as it commenced trying to repair itself. Its feet glowed brilliantly, apparently due to its hopeless effort to draw soil up into itself.

The soil-fighter stumbled backwards, and Bankotsu knew he had won when it fell. He made a fist out of each hand, and threw them both down, shattering both soil-made feet on his opponent.

The brilliant gold glow on the soil-fighter's feet dissipated in clouds of dust, leaving only skeletal feet. Bankotsu stared at the soil-fighter as the dirt fell away from its inner skeleton, piling on the top of the rock.

The skeleton that was left over dissipated into a purplish cloud, floated towards Bankotsu, and bored itself bloodlessly, but not painlessly, into his sternum.

Feeling a new heaviness about his body, Bankotsu fell to one knee for a few moments before plucking his weapon out of its stone prison, and lightly jumping off the rock.

Bankotsu glanced a moment at the bleeding knuckles on his right hand. He humphed indifferently, then silently lighted the halberd on his shoulder, as he always did, whether in life or un-life. He made his way toward the monks without a word.

Kanaye ran up to him, his eyes glowing in admiration. The boy put himself directly in the path of where Bankotsu was walking. "Hey! Teach me how to do that!" Kanaye ordered him, his little fists raised. "C'mon! Fight me!"

"If I fight you, I kill you, kid."

"But I wanna do stuff like that, too!" insisted the scrawny boy, waving his fists, trying to get the warrior to look at him.

Bankotsu, in a tired effort, pushed the boy lightly out of his way, never stopping as he moved forward. "To do that, you have to be trained like I was. And trust me, kid...you don't _want _that."

Kanaye watched him in fearful shock as he walked toward the monks, one of which was tending to Raidonichi, the rest whispering amongst themselves about what they had just witnesed.

The raven, who had been watching the entire time, had now seen enough. It sqawked again hoarsely, and flew off the branch on which it had perched itself, disappearing in a cloud of demonic ether.


	25. Chapter 25

Authoress' notes: The name Soumeikarasu means "Intelligent Raven." And I still don't own Inuyasha, or anything in the Inuyasha universe. Especially Bankotsu. :(

HUGE thanks to Wikipedia, for lots of info on lots of stuff used in this fanfic. If you want an exhaustive list of sources, let me know, since URLs don't work on fic pages. Maybe later I will link in my profile to an HTML page listing all of them.

**Wayward Ransom, chapter 25.**

"So...the young man has escaped from the underworld, and even has retained a physical body," said Soumeikarasu as she appeared in front of Yukio, a clear indication that she had seen something interesting while spying around for the day. "Quite remarkable," she said, intrigued. "I've questioned some villagers and sages about him after seeing him. I've heard in my travels that he was one of the few people that can take control of an entire castle single-handedly," said the raven-demoness. "Now that I've seen him in action, I believe it. And it's so fortunate for both of us that I am the only one he cannot lay a hand on," she finished, her deep, throaty voice becoming more gravelly and menacing.

Yukio was perturbed by many of the demoness's habits, and one of them was suddenly appearing wherever she wished to be. The older man hated the way Soumeikarasu tended to invite herself everywhere. "The _door_, Soumeikarasu."

Soumeikarasu scowled. "As useless to me as that supposed _paperwork _on your desk," she shot back.

Yukio lifted his head from his paperwork, and looked over to his right, where the temperamental Soumeikarasu stood. She was, underneath all the annoying habits, an intriguing, intelligent, ambitious apparition. She was stunningly beautiful in the traditional sense, but Yukio's fascination with her was often tempered by the fact that he found her mannerisms were quite often unbecoming of someone so lovely, and her skin much too swarthy.

She was usually made of thin air, anyway, as making herself solid took an incredible amount of effort for her, weakening her all too quickly. But her immateriality also gave he the abilities of a boundlessly useful messenger between the worlds of the living and the dead. Yukio knew the raven-demoness had her depthless black eyes set on the young warrior for a long time; in fact, she knew about him ever since Yukio's former lord had executed the young man, but due to the limits on her powers, could not take control of him in the underworld. Yukio saw a renewed usefulness in him, thanks to his resurrection, and his deal with Soumeikarasu. The demoness, in return, felt she had to wait all too long for someone like Yukio to be able to give her what she sought: a strong, able warrior's body she did not have to work at keeping solid, and could take down the Underworld single-handedly while using. A lowly messenger she soon would not be; she had much more potential than that!

"I have to have my paperwork ready," said Yukio, his annoyance growing. "In these uncertain times, if anything happens, I surely want my son to have all that I could give him, and that means keeping close track of expenses. I can't run this place without paperwork."

Soumeikarasu made a closed fan, made entirely of jet black feathers, appear in her hand. "This boy will certainly be a wonderful tool in keeping everyone else around your castle in line." she said, oblivious to her partner's explanations. "So why are we stalling so long? I'd love the chance to break him in, and now is the best time for us to begin this," she said impatiently.

"You will not be able to accomplish anything without him staying in the same place for very long," answered Yukio, burying his eyes in scrolls again. "That's my responsibility."

"And I'm sure you've got it all under control,"cooed Soumeikarasu pleasantly, with a wave of her black feather-fan. "From what I've heard of your old lord, he most certainly didn't use this young man to his potential."

"No, he didn't. That's why he's dead," answered Yukio matter-of-factly, while writing some figures down. "Of course, I saw no issue in killing the boy and his lackeys off, but I forwarned my lord that he shouldn't have been so smug about things. WIth the pieces of that ridiculous purple stone all over the place recently, who knows what could have happened? He should have had the place more secure, and sent someone to get me the second he knew about that letter. Either way, if the brat wasn't resurrected, no doubt someone using the Shikon Jewel would have struck him down anyway..." Yukio stopped writing for a moment, and turned a side of his mouth down. "...but perhaps...not as quickly," he reluctantly admitted. "Anyway, it was too bad that I wasn't there to greet him upon his resurrection. And I have no doubt the brat was offered a position in the castle by the lord, and it was right before the Banryuu fell on him," continued Yukio, dryly.

Soumeikarasu huffed. "That would make him only the more idiotic to me." She turned her head toward the screen, and opened it slightly. She peered out into the afternoon sun a bit, and her kimono, made of her own substance and consisting of layers of jet-black feathers, reflected no sunlight at all.

She shut the screen. The quick motion of her forearm caused the long, royal-blue-trimmed sleeves of her kimono to flutter. "You don't _ask_ a boy like that to work for you," she said, balling a black-clawed hand. "You just _take_ him. You just _use_ him," she said, laughing gently. "And having him fall at your feet is just a bonus."

Yukio looked up with a smile on his face. He implicitly agreed with most of the things she had said. Looking back down at his paperwork, wrinkled his brow. "I do have to say though, that without painstaking preparation, it would have been difficult, if not impossible, to contain him without killing him. We might have trained him a little too well. As you have seen from the results, training him certainly wasn't an overnight process."

"Certainly not," agreed the demoness.

After a bit of thought, a slight smile returned to Yukio's mouth. "However, he's still only human. And I always insisted that he was too much of an investment in time and resources to let him go wandering around like he did. I suppose when it came between gaining favor of the masses versus dealing with the negative effects using him would cause, it was just more efficient to kill him." Yukio waved a bit at Soumeikarasu with the brush with which he had been writing. "However, I don't ascribe to the same philosophy. Willing or unwilling, he will work for us. The losses will be worth the rewards."

Soumeikarasu cleared her throat loudly.

"Yes," he said to the demoness, "with _your_ expertise, he will work for us."

Soumeikarasu smiled broadly. "You've thought this out very well, I believe. The stone, the bird, the armor..."

"Yes, either way, one _may_ be dead, and one will definitely be broken."

"The bird, or the boy," clarified the demoness.

"Yes. Then we may put one, or both, back together _our_ way."

"Hm. I heard breaking his spirit worked the first time, by first killing off his group of cohorts, and also by killing that girl he seemed to be attached to." Soumeikarasu continued to smile broadly, until she noticed that Yukio was getting lost in his facts and figures again. She looked at the elderly man, puzzled. "Don't you have anyone to do that annoying paperwork for you?" she asked. She pointed to the guard in back of her. "How about having _him_ do it and we look for the brat?"

Yukio looked up again. The guard behind the demoness was silent, then nervously began adjusting his magical armor, bearing the emblem of a silkworm.

"I _like_ paperwork. It _relaxes_ me," Yukio said, and huffed an exasperated sigh. Soumeikarasu often felt welcome to say whatever she wanted, as she knew no blade or spear could discipline her.

With a huff of her breath, Soumeikarasu turned herself into the form of a raven, and vanished from the room in a wisp of purple smoke.

_Let the brat come to us,_ thought Yukio, calmly doing his paperwork. _Half of the mistakes made in the past were due to underestimation. But that's what happens when you are never there to observe someone's training progress._

Yukio's brow knitted, and he stopped writing for a moment. His eyes shifted to their corners. _And that demoness still didn't bother to at least pretend to use the door._

* * *

Bankotsu sat on the rock, toweling his shoulders and chest off a little more after his long hot spring bath. This time, his bath had been a relaxingly solitary one; he must have been in there for hours, and it was well needed. He only wanted to remain in there a short while. However, he had made the mistake of closing his eyes, and by the time he opened them, he had been in the bath so late, that the darkness was making things a bit difficult to see. Figuring he had to be ready for tomorrow's assault on Yukio's castle, he mentally bid the hot spring a sad farewell, and started making his way back on the path to Masakisho's place to get some sound sleep. 

He took note of his arm. It was healed rather well by now, and the hot spring seemed to melt the rest of the nagging discomfort in his hip away.

He toweled his neck a bit more, and by the time he reached the tree line a little ways from the spring, he toweled his knee-length hair a bit more, too, as it still made the back of his white trousers a bit wet.

That's when he realized that his hair tie was glaringly missing. Rolling his eyes as his forgetfulness, he stopped dead in his tracks, with the intention of heading back to the spring.

And just as he turned around, a weapon bit into the tree he would have passed, had he continued walking.

Looking back at it, he recognized the weapon as something similar to what that guy, Raidonichi, used. Bankotsu quickly estimated, with a killer glare, the direction from where the weapon was thrown, and made a bolting run in that same direction, but not before plucking the sai out of the bark for himself to use.

The shrubbery whizzed by as he deftly went straight for the offender. Jumping over large stones and small streams as deftly as a cat, he knew he was in hot pursuit, as he could hear the offender disturb the forest vegetation in front of him.

He didn't have to run very long before he caught up with the offender, and tackled him. His enemy tried in vain to fight back, turning himself to face him, but Bankotsu only chuckled at the sorry effort that was made.

Bankotsu held the sai above the aggressor's head, poised to sink it deeply into the neck of his opponent. He glared into his opponent's widened eyes.

And realized they belong to a child. A child he knew, in fact.

Bankotsu wasn't surprised. He threw down the sai poised above the child's head, grinning the while time. Surprisingly, the child didn't shout or scream.

The weapon bit into the ground, an inch away from Kanaye's neck.

Still holding onto the weapon's handle, Bankotsu glared at the boy, his cold smirk replaced by the expression of sheer, unbounded rage. "_You...stupid...fucking...kid!_" growled Bankotsu menacingly at the boy underneath him. He gripped the weapon handle so tightly, his knuckles turned white, and his hand vibrated. "The_ hell _did you think you were doing?"

"Seeing if you were a liar," hissed Kanaye softly, but so intensely for someone his age. "And that's what you are. A liar."

"The hell - ?"

"I was _testing _you, Bankotsu of the Shichinintai!" said Kanaye thoughtlessly, as Bankotsu plucked the weapon out from the ground and got off him.

The mention of his men sent a sting of pain through Ban. He had lost his men twice already, and it infuriated Ban for the kid to think that warfare, and thus, his losses, were all some sort of joke. In some ways, he felt guilty for being the only one strong enough to escape the Sanzu under his own power, and still walk on the earth.

However, the sight of his men so peacefully and patiently waiting for him on the heavenly shore of the Sanzu encouraged him to continue on, of course. Otherwise, he might..._just might_...have had to hunt down the half-demon again so he had the chance of getting sent back to hell in a fair fight.

Kanaye got up to his hands and knees. "You told me if you'd fight me, you'd kill me. I wanted to see what you'd do! And you missed me just now...so fight me!"

As he sat on the ground, Bankotsu had to wipe his face with a palm of his hand, while the other still nervously fingered the weapon. "You stupid kid," he spat again. "You don't get it. I missed you on _purpose!_" explained the young man with ever lessing patience. "According to _this_," he hissed as he angrily held up the sai he plucked from the tree, "there was no fight! You're already _dead_!"

Kanaye, in his reckless innocence, had not thought that he was actually spared, and his eyes grew wide in horror. They shifted to their corners, and he lowered his head in utter embarassment.

"Lucky for _you_, kid, that I can tell the difference between someone trying to kill me out of stupidity and someone trying to kill me because of _business_!" Bankotsu stated furiously, while Kanaye sat upright. "Let me tell you," he continued softly, his now lowered voice even more frightening to Kanaye than if he would have shouted. "Some of my men would have gladly _ripped_ into you for the simple fact that you're a kid!" He pointed the weapon at the boy, his eyes narrowed, and his voice full of quiet menace. "Andaren't you damn lucky that _I'm _not him, and _I _personally don't believe in killing kids like you!"

The young man threw the weapon down, and it bit into the soft, grassy earth with a low-pitched ring. He continued to mercilessly scold the child as he got up from the ground. "I wasn't the leader of a bunch of professional killers for no reason. This isn't a fucking _game_, kid. Do something half-assed like that again to someone who doesn't care about the fact that you're a complete idiot, and your handlers'll find your head on a pike!"

Kanaye tried to be strong and not let the young man's understandably vicious reprimand get to him, but he found he couldn't help it. He wiped his damp eyes, too humbled to get up from kneeling on the ground. "...I'm gonna have a baby sister..." he whispered almost inaudibly.

Bankotsu, now up on his feet, crossed his arms defiantly, but remained silent to let the boy talk as he glared down at him.

"Raidonichi told me my mom's gonna have a baby." He looked up at Bankotsu with the most serious, dark black eyes Bankotsu had ever seen, and balled his hands into fists. "And I know I'm gonna have a baby sister! So I have to protect her from people she won't like!" His eyes glistened as he looked up to the young warrior. "Don't you wanna do that too?"

Bankotsu smirked sarcastically. "Well. Ain't _you_ gallant."

"You're already so strong! Don't you wanna use it to defend someone?"

Bankotsu's expression softened considerably, and he had to look away, as something about the sheer sight of Kanaye annoyed him. The idiotic kid had managed to really strike a chord in him. "I started out that way," he confessed quietly. "But my life ended up being different than I wanted it to go." His eyes flashed intensely at Kanaye for a moment, and the boy flinched backward. "That's what happens when you get caught up in this crap, kid!" He inhaled, then sighed deeply. "So...remember _that_, too." With his brow knitted in thought, he continued. "And yeah, I've defended people in the past." He shook his head, uncrossed his arms, turned on his heel, and stepped away from the boy. "But most of them ended up not even being worth it," he said, continuing to put distance between himself and Kanaye.

Bankotsu continued on his way through the forest, and eventually Kanaye succeeded in relatively catching up to him. They walked for quite a while without speaking, Bankotsu fuming in irritation at the boy, at himself, at everything he could find an excuse at which to be irritated. The young man was now constantly aware of Kanaye walking a few paces in back of him.

With each step forward, though, Bankotsu could feel his feathers smoothing over again, and almost as quickly as his irritation was ignited, it was soon gone. However, Kanaye continued to stay behind him, his eyes lowered and his shoulders slumped. He had never, ever been reprimanded so severely, as everyone he ever knew tended to fall all over him for how much "spirit" and "energy" he had. With the young warrior's words ringing through his head, Kanaye promised himself not to try anything like what he did again.

As they walked up the few stairs, about to enter Masakisho's place, Bankotsu turned back, and saw Kanaye, still standing on the ground below, his head lowered in humiliation. He respectfully waited for Ban to open the door and enter first.

Bankotsu had to smile at the boy. "You know what?" he said, looking down and over his shoulder at Kanaye. "In some ways, you remind me a lot of myself when I was your age." He recalled his sound scolding of the boy, now that he was compeltely cooled off, and thought it amusing that he hadn'tever quite gottenthat angry with anyone...except his own men.

Kanaye brightened. "Wow! Does that mean you'll train me? Um...please?" he pleaded as quietly and politely as he could, fervently hoping for the young man to say yes. Though now Kanaye was positive he would never launch another sneak attack on anyone without their permission, he still hoped to gain some skills from someone he saw was so amazing in battle.

Bankotsu scowled deeply. "No," he growled, after pondering something for a moment. He turned back to the door and slid it open. "That gives me all the more reason_ not _to train you, kid."

Kanaye sighed, and took his frustration out on a rock in front of him. He kicked it soundly, and it landed far away from him with a solid, earthy _thunk_.


	26. Chapter 26

Authoress' notes: (authoress bows so low in front of Rumiko Takahashi that she thunks her head off the floor) (THUNK) ...OW!

Besides...Shidoubara is(Guide) + (Rose)

Thank you again to everyone who reads and reviews! I appreciate it!

**Wayward Ransom, chapter 27.**

by artisanrox

The young man sat on the matted floor, hunched over, his hand held up to his bowed forehead in frustration.

Akiko's elaborate wooden box containing her brushes and ink lay on the floor next to them, in the strangely indistinct, foggy cottage.

She turned to her left, placed the cleaned brush in the box, and sighed resignedly. "I think that's about all for today," she said tiredly, and brought her palms from resting neatly on her thighs up to her face, rubbing her tired eyes. "I don't know how else to explain some of this."

"So...there's no easy way to remember all this stuff?" asked Bankotsu, rubbing his temples with a hand.

"I'm afraid not," said the girl. "You just have to keep using what I'm telling you until it all becomes second nature."

Bankotsu scratched his head and sighed at the mass of papers around them. Flat scrolls lay on the low table in front of them, and scrunched up papers were scattered on the floor. It was a constant struggle for him just learning good brush technique, and remembering what the characters looked like, let alone making the brush strokes in the proper order.

The only time he could do anything anywhere near an acceptable level, at least according to his teacher, was for her to literally take his hand and help him along. Though, most times he absolutely didn't _mind_ her taking his hand. But even though her tendency to accept nothing less than perfection got to be really frustrating, she was irresistible as a teacher.

Bankotsu never quite wanted to learn from anyone else. He found it hard to believe he could, anyway. He'd never, _ever_ consider looking like an ass in front of his men by fumbling around while practicing to write. Asking his only literate member to teach him was unthinkable. The elders of the surrounding villages knew his name, and of his frightening reputation, and would have no qualms about seeking to kill him in a moment of concentration. Besides, why learn from other literate people, who'd probably turn their noses up at the mention of his name anyway, when you could have a pretty girl do it?

So, there was only one alternative to getting some practical experience, and Bankotsu pretty much knew the answer to the question before even asking it, since he had asked it once or twice before.

"Wh- what if we go to the market, and I'll try to read some of the signs there?" Bankotsu asked, hopeful to spend a little more time with the girl. He looked downward, breaking contact with Akiko's eyes, and started nervously running the edge of his cobalt blue jacket between his fingers.

Akiko looked out the window. Her brow wrinkled. "I told you before. I-- really shouldn't be seen in town with you," she said nervously. "I'm already getting dirty looks from some of the people around here."

"Why should _that_ matter?" Bankotsu looked back up at her, grinned and raised an eyebrow. "Who cares what people think of you?" He was sliding closer to her as he spoke. "Screw 'em all. There'll always be someone who doesn't like you, no matter what you do."

He rose up a bit, and turned. He practically leaned over her, and in response, she arched her back away from him a little. Her yellow eyes widened.

"So...why not do what _you_ want?" he said quietly, his eyes looking deeply into hers. "C'mon along with me," he whispered, with a darkly charming smile, and a toss of his head towards the front door.

Her wordless, wide-eyed gaze was enough of an answer in itself. After admitting to himself that the answer wouldn't be "yes" this time either, he pried a little further. "You worried about the guys?"

Akiko tried to choose her words carefully. All she could come muster, however, was, "Well...I...ah-"

Don't worry at all," he interrupted quietly, flashing that irresistible smile again. "_I _know they won't lay a finger on you, because_ they _know they won't have fingers afterwards if they do."

Akiko looked positively torn for a moment, her eyes flickering back and forth, back and forth between the only two possible answers she could give.

She placed a hand lightly on his chest, and gently pushed on it. "I can't," she whispered, her eyes now still helplessly locked into his. A long, agonizing silence commenced, and he sat back down after Akiko hesitatingly removed her hand from him.

Shot down, Bankotsu's shoulders fell, and he resumed fiddling nervously with the edge of his jacket.

"I'm sorry," added Akiko. "I do really thank you..."

"I'll pay you for any brushes I ruined," said the young man in an attempt tp change the subject. "I haven't made amends for that in a while. "

"That's alright," said his teacher with a laugh. "You know, you're much better with your money than I am, I think. If I had as much money as you I'd probably wouldn't have enough of it to show to anyone else. I'd buy my own kingdom or something!"

Ban continued to pick dejectedly at his jacket's hem. "All that...isn't what I want," he said quietly.

Puzzlement flushed over Akiko's face for a moment, after which her expression became very grave. "I do work for government officials all the time. I hear them talk. They hate you very much. I don't want them to ruin everything you've given me by angering them. They'd just take it all away, and that would make it all pointless. But I'm sorry."

Ban laughed. "They're just afraid of us," he said with a casual grin. "They already know we can run through their own forces in hours. That's why they have no problem paying us to do their dirty work for them. They can talk all they want. Doesn't change the fact that I'm not worried that my men and I call the shots."

"That's what worries _me_," said the girl.

Bankotsu humphed. This is usually how the non-educational conversation went with Akiko. Her repeated refusals often made many things well up within him that usually were hard to come by: true anger, true disappointment. They temporarily flashed within him when she refused to accompany him in public, and he momentarily would find Akiko's fear of society irrational and unfounded, particularily when someone she knew was the leader of an extremely powerful group of mercenaries. What was stopping her from just _going _with him and telling the government to go to hell? Akiko seemed to live her entire life in unecessary fear, which was thoroughly annoying to him. However, he knew of his own reputation among the villagers of the area, and that was certainly part of her reluctance.

Bankotsu smiled wryly to himself. That was the price he paid for feeling indebted and honor-bound to a group of ruthless killers. "If we go out, you could show me where you got that pretty little box you have all your stuff in," he insisted.

Akiko brightened, and Bankotsu hoped beyond hope that it meant an acceptance of his offer.

"Oh! That brush box wasn't bought at a shop!" Akiko laughed. "That's an heirloom from my father's side of the family." She picked up the box and brushed her fingertips across its intricate surface.

Bankotsu saw her flinch backwards as she noticed an ant coming out from under the lid, and flicked it off in disgust. The two of them watched it land on the floor, and Bankotsu thought its presence exceedingly odd. He wondered how an ant could have possibly gotten in there in the first place, since the case was closed the entire time she was teaching him, and there were no insects in there to begin with.

Akiko's eyes met the young man's once she flicked the ant away. "One of my mother's ancestors was a master woodcarver," she continued, after recovering from getting spooked from the insect, "so there's nothing else like it. It wasn't just given to me, it was entrusted to me."

The young man gasped, and could feel his face pale in worry as he looked up into Akiko's face. Since anything to do with language caused Ban to panic horribly, he often lost awareness of his strength in frustration, the result of which was that he had reduced many brushes to splinters in the past few weeks. Bankotsu was hoping the many brushes he ruined weren't as precious as the wooden case.

"The brushes you demolished?" Akiko laughed and waved her hand dismissively. "Oh, don't worry, they're junk. That's why I wasn't particularily worried about them."

Bankotsu sighed, and almost passed out from relief.

"I buy a few of them at a time so I can be--" Her eyes went wide, and her face paled.

Bankotsu turned around to see at what she was staring, and Akiko screamed in horror, as Ban saw that in the place of the single ant that she previously flicked away, there were millions and millions of them, covering the front doors, the walls, and part of the ceiling in a blanket of crawling blackness.

Ban felt Akiko grasp his upper arm tightly, and he had to grin at her rather uncharacteristic girlishness. She usually didn't shrink from bugs, even demonic bugs, but rather sat in a near-trance, fascinated by them. Maybe there was something specific about ants that she didn't like? "They're just bugs, you know." In spite of his comment, he was more than happy to wrap an arm around her waist and draw her tightly next to him.

"But...there's so many of them!" she exclaimed, now gripping his shirt at his chest and back, and leaning heavily into his shoulder.

Bankotsu gazed into her worried face, now so painfully close to his own. He would have loved to have the girl clinging all over him like that for a long while, as it was so rare she did so. However, he had to admit that the ants would get eventually get pretty annoying, and would distract him from her. The thought made him laugh. "We'll just find somewhere else for you to stay until we can get the place cleaned up." He knew to get rid of the insects, or to get the two of them out of the cottage, he'd have to release her, but before doing so, he held her closer to him for one moment longer and whispered in her ear. "...or...you can just come with _me_, and we can-"

"Uh...n-- no," she said, releasing him a bit too quickly, and this caused the young man to roll his eyes in frustration. The girl grabbed a sturdy roll of parchment as a deep blush spread across her cheeks. Ban chuckled again, and as he walked casually over to the front door, she stood up and began following him, swatting the closely circling ants away from her with a roll of paper, grunting and groaning at the unpleasantness of the invasion.

Ban grasped the door, and pushed on it. Strangely, it refused to move even when Bankotsu used his full strength to try to budge it. Even pushing into it full-force didn't move it.

_The...hell? I can't budge a stupid screen?_

"Relax, girl," he said to her as she began to cry, the ants finally reaching her and starting to bite her feet. "If we can't go through the front door, I'll just make another way out." He walked over to where the door met the wall, and ran into it, full-strength, shoulder-first. When the wood paneling was knocked away, there was nothing but millions more ants where there should have been daylight. A few ants bit into his shoulder before he could get them off, and he realized that these ants, did indeed, _hurt_ when they bit.

Ban heard the girl cry out again, and when he looked back, she was thrashing around helplessly, waist deep in a black, crawling mass of insects, her arms pinned down to her sides.

The entire house around them disappeared, whisked away into a misty, whitish surrounding. Bankotsu was thrown completely out-of-sorts by the whole thing, and was finding his walking was severely impeded by heavy masses of ants beginning to cling to his feet and legs.

In the distance, a platform stood against the awful, cold whiteness of the area. Ban could see the same blackness that threatened to take the two of them over, dripping in loads from the top of the platform.

And his eyes widened in horror as he saw the swarm leaving behind the bones and characteristic weapons of his comrades. The insects had devoured each of his men, leaving their twisted skeletons left on the platform, gazing toward him with hollow eyes.

_My men? FUCK!_ Thought Bankotsu as he struggled to move his feet, both horrified and angered in the realization that his comrades had also been overpowered, then consumed by the swarm.

Bankotsu could feel the swarm clinging onto his feet, preventing him from moving, and he began to thrash around as helplessly as the girl.

He, and the girl, were next.

He looked up, and there was that half-demon, seemingly on another raised platform where the ants did not swarm, his expression twisted into worry. Behind him, he saw that girl, that reincarnation of Kikiyou, shooting sacred arrows, trying to keep the number of insects down, but getting more and more frustrated at her ineffectiveness. They were obviously shouting things to one another, but Bankotsu could not hear anything; the ghastly sounds of the sea of ants drowned out their words into seeming silence.

The half-demon reached out a clawed hand to the both of them.

Bankotsu glared at the half-demon. He then cursed him under his breath, and turned his back toward him, continuing in trying to fight off the swarm by himself.

"Take his hand! Bankotsu! _BANKOTSU!" _Akiko despairingly called over to him. His refusal to listen caused her to go from calling Bankotsu in a frenzied scream, to a desperate plea as she struggled to break free of her living prison._ "My God! Please! Bankotsu! Take his hand!"_

Ban only turned around, and continued to glare coldly at the half-demon while the sea of ants continued to swallow the two of them. Another part of himself, however, had only the awareness of thousands and millions of biting insects covering him from his feet to his neck.

"_GODDAMMNIT! Bankotsu, you're killing us!"_ pleaded the girl with tears running down her face. The ants getting into her hair, her eyes, her ears, caused her to wail horrifically and shake her head in a hopeless effort to get them off. "_You're KILLING US_!"

She gave one final scream, and Ban's vision went completely black.

His eyes flew open.

He gasped. He quickly sat up, adrenaline still racing through him, causing him to pant heavily. With the feeling of all those insects still crawling all over him, the girl's blood-curdling screams ringing in his head, the sight of the uncontested deadly invasion of ants devouring all his men so easily, he didn't even care to notice the covers falling from his chest down to his lap. He drew his legs up a bit and balanced a wrist on either knee, his head lowered as beads of sweat ran off and fell onto the futon under him.

After quite a while, his breathing evened out, and he managed to lift his head. Gazing out of the window at the faint morning light, he wiped his brow with a limp hand and rose heavily to his feet, a sea of thoughts about the daimyo's betrayal, his loss to that damned half-demon, and the girl's continued refusals of his offers swirling about his head and causing him to stumble once or twice.

_Nightmare. Crap...that hasn't happened for a while_.

Needing some fresh air, he left his room. Still in a bit of a shaky daze from the sudden awakening, he padded unsteadily, but quietly over to the front screen, using the walls and furniture for support.

Reaching the front screen, he was thankful for a moment as it opened just as he wanted it to. Walking out onto the front steps, he found himself bathed in the quiet, cool, bluish light of the early morning. Reaching a wooden supporting pole, he crossed his legs and his arms, and lowered his brow defiantly. He closed his eyes and leaned his head and shoulder tiredly on the pole.

_Why the hell would that half-demon care?_

The crickets, who refused to be lulled into resting for the day, and still chirped noisily, held no answer.

_She could've lived like a queen, right up until the end. _

A flash of anger arose from within him.

_We ended up having the same damned ending, anyway._

A deep, cleansing breath was inhaled, then exhaled slowly. A deer, catching the scent of a human in the area, leaped away from the house, into the thick forest.

_No. Can't let it bother me..._

_Can't._

He opened his eyes, and gazed at the color-changing horizon as the sun rose. He listened to the increasing number of melodic bird calls, which steadily began to replace the chirping of the crickets in the crisp air.

He dared not fall asleep again, but he was calmed in the notion that the day would bring the same things it always had for him.

He glanced over to his left, where his halberd rested, planted securely in the ground, almost glowing from the angle of the light relecting off the curved surface of the end blade.

Another day, another target.

He forced himself to grin. _Going for my target...it'll help me forget about it all _**real**_ fast_.

* * *

The curved edge of the banryuu bit deeply into the sliding door to the daimyo, Yukio's, castle. The door was easily pushed aside, and the young warrior stepped casually through it, looking for his target. 

Bankotsu humphed boredly. The defenses to this castle were exactly what he suspected: awfully inadequate. Just like they all were.

Having been seen at the bottom of the steep hill by a group of what he was sure were Yukio's strongest soldiers, Bankotsu grinned as they raced down the winding path to meet him. They had wisely sent the strongest out first instead of last. Maybe they had hoped to wear him out that way. After a few exchanges of useless banter, the general waved his fan forward, and they had attacked.

And so easily, the banryuu cut the legs from under all ten horses, and in the second few swipes, dispatched them, then in seconds, removed the heads from the men who were riding them.

The closer he got to the castle, the weaker the castle's defenses were, due to the sheer numbers of soldiers fleeing in fear when seeing their much stronger commanders literally fall in pieces. Many ran at the sight of the single dark young man, dressed completely in ghostly white, with the huge, blood-smeared halberd in his hand. Others, who were either younger or inexperienced, were so frozen they could not attack; they stood still as statues, shakily holding their rifles. Their katanas also clattered nervously in their scabbards, as the young man walked a footstep or two away past them. And then they almost fainted when they realized they, themselves, were still alive.

The archers were a bit more of a problem, but a quick dodge here and there, sometimes using his weapon as a shield, and making a rush to the front gate solved that problem.

When he reached the interior of the gate, there were no more troops to confront him; all was silent, and Bankotsu stood still for a moment, a sarcastic grin on his face, just _daring_ someone to shoot at him, from either ground or air.

But...there was no shot fired. And there was no one to be seen.

Even as he entered the front door, and the interior of the castle was as ghostly as the front gate. he chuckled to himself. _Couldn't have killed everyone already_, he thought, amused. _They all must have fled. Fine with me. I should have sent a letter, like last time...would have given some of them more time to choose to either leave ,or prepare to die._ A slight twinge of embarassment went through him, because, not having Renkotsu with him, and not being able to read and write himself pretty much meant the idea was null and void.

Bankotsu entered the front room, and closed the door behind him. He leaned heavily on the door frame with one shoulder, the other shoulder bearing his huge weapon...and he sighed tiredly.

And that's when he raised an eyebrow in confusion. _This is getting tiring?_

Supported by the doorframe, he furrowed his brow. He still felt the loss of his men now and again. And he still was angry at himself for not being able to remember the simplest things that Akiko, his reluctant former teacher, tried to drill into his head over and over, and over again.

Most of him had no issue in picking up right where he left off the first time, but the adrenaline was quickly wearing off in the boredom caused by the silence of the empty castle. Flashbacks, prompted by the thought of the previous night's bad dream, started to fill his mind: his humiliating loss at the hands of that half-demon, the sight of seeing so many around him die, over and over. For just a brief moment, the whole business of leaving a trail of body parts behind him was...

_...yeah. Tiring._

"Damn half-demon..." he whispered to himself, "...getting to me like that..." This was not the time to get distracted, though some wine would be nice to help him forget the scathing discipline handed to him by the very one who had taken his comrades from him.

All of his previous opponents, from the time he was a small boy, wanted him_ dead_; they were out for blood, and would have gotten it, by strength or deception; they were out for his head and, later, the heads of his comrades on pikes. The next time around, they'd be no different. Enemies were never considerate enough to quit playing when _you_ got tired of it.

What infuriated him the most was that Bankotsu could tell that the soft half-demon, the same one that ended up defeating him, didn't even really want _any_ of that. From the way he fought, to the way he bantered, Bankotsu could tell that the half-demon's heart wasn't fully into any of it.

Naraku had told him about Inuyasha's formidable strength, especially if he had, out of necessity, turned full-demon on Bankotsu. He sincerely wished for that to happen as to further test his strength, after cutting through the disappointingly weak Wind Scar, and most especially after mirroring it back.

But instead, his opponent ended up desperately trying to get him to see through Naraku's misuse of him. And Bankotsu did...all too late. Naraku had granted him and his comrades another life, for which they were grateful, even though they all knew it was all merely a means to an end. And Bankotsu was pretty grateful himself...

...and then, there was his banter with the half-demon. The half-demon seemed to want to give him something else. Freedom? Understanding?

The whole situation caused him to wonder: Was his opponent's softness, his lack of a killer instinct, also part of his strength?

He considered that idea ridiculous. Kill or be killed - that's how the world worked, half-demon or not. He shook his head in an attempt to clear it.

Bankotsu pushed himself away from the threshold, and began casually going about from room to room, searching for his prey at a frighteningly relaxed pace. To make sure there were no cowards hiding in the corners of the castle, he made sure to run his weapon right through the doors of the closets. However, the only thing that came out of each closet was a storm of white feathers from the destroyed futons within. However, when he sniffed the air, he could have swore he could smell wood burning.

Bankotsu entered another, much larger room. It was richly decorated, like all the other rooms he had been in, with beautiful silk screens of peacocks and peonys. The desk within the room had a brush laid across it, obviously dropped in a hurry to leave the room. Documents he could not begin to comprehend were spread across the desk, some tainted black by the wet brush, and Bankotsu could barely see a picture of a golden winged creature beneath the splattered ink. He gazed at it temporarily, but since he could never hope to learn anything by taking a look at the scrolls which lined the shelves, he decided instead to continue to check for his target in the large wooden crate in one corner of the room. A quick thrust downwards with the curved edge of the banryuu created a flurry of wooden shrapnel and gold coins, and also assured there was nobody attempting to hide inside.

Bringing the curved blade back up, Bankotsu couldn't help but gaze for a moment again at the ever-so-slightly glittering edge of it. Touching a finger to it, back at the monk's place earlier in the day, had caused a stinging burn on his finger. _The priests actually managed to put some purifying power in the curved edge. Huh. Maybe that's for the best,_ thought Bankotsu, looking at the faint purple glow with a wry grin. _Maybe my "holy" weapon will be more kind than I will. _

He turned down a corner of his mouth in disgust. _Maybe that means I shoulda left it at Masakisho's place._

With another indifferent humph, he passed up the gold coins which lay on the floor, left the scroll room behind, and continued his room-to-room manhunt. He noticed the burning smell getting stronger, and the air getting slightly warmer.

Bankotsu continued to destroy closets, chop furniture in half, and tear up suspiciously loose floorboards. He had found more than one cringing daimyo in his life hiding out in such places, all-too-confident they'd get away from their death sentence. They for certain weren't the most entertaining kills, as the stronger, more defiant of his targets were the ones he truly enjoyed taking down. Nonetheless, death was the one thing he knew how to do well, and even when the cowardliness of his targets caused him extreme boredom, he and his men managed to leave the burning castles, and everything in them, behind. The satisfaction of a job well done was all that mattered. Being paid extremely well for doing what you did best was simply added good fortune.

Searching through a small food storage room, he began to consider that his target was, apparently, not in the castle. The storage room was obviously next-to-last in the long hallway he searched. After much investigation and still turning up nothing, Bankotsu spat an impatient "damn". He turned a corner, heading down the long hallway to the large room at the end of the hall, the burning smell getting stronger with every step.

Opening the large screen, he was assaulted by a wall of hot, dark smoke, and it curled around him as he entered the room.

* * *

"Girls! Get out of here! The fire is getting worse!" 

The confident, middle-aged woman took hold of the senior's gentle hand. "We're not leaving you, Shidoubara! You're coming with us if we have to carry you! There are too many things you must teach us!"

The old teacher objected, flailing her arms, trying to fight the two of them off. "_No_, girls! You two must get out! I don't know if I can walk!"

The younger woman scowled angrily at the growing fire, and wrapped an arm around her teacher. "How awful it was for the rest of the staff to just leave you here and run off like that when you fell! They better hope they won't run into me, because I'll show them about as much mercy as that demon would!"

The youngest of the three solidly held on to her teacher's opposite arm, not letting her grasp budge no matter how much struggle there was. "I agree with _her_! We're taking you with us! We'll get out of here...I'm sure of it!" She glanced over to the other woman. "But, we must get dear Shidoubara back up quickly! It's getting too hot in here! And soon we won't be able to see and-"

"Don't worry!" said the woman on the teacher's left impatiently. The smoke was starting to affect her, and she coughed deeply. "Just...stop! Let's carefully get her to her feet. The more calmly we do this, the faster we can be out of here. The door isn't far away." She closed her eyes for a moment to collect herself, so the young apprentice with her wouldn't feed off her fear. "Ready?" she said, after clearing away some kitchen equipment that littered the floor around them.

The girl nodded, but fear was etched into her face. She nervously bit her lip as the smoke was getting thicker, and the fire, growing steady as it was easily fed by the wooden structure around them, threatened to engulf them.

The woman was forced to cough once again before counting down. "One, two-"

Her final count was never even heard above the apprentice's scream of terror.

Through the black smoke, a ghostly shadow could be seen. The shadow became a figure of someone walking toward them, and the young girl released her teacher's arm so she could clap a hand to her mouth and begin shuffling backward. She had not far at all to go before her back hit the shelves behind her, and tears began to stream from her eyes in horror.

All three of them were soon gazing up at who they were sure was the demon that single-handedly took down all the castle's best defenses, and caused the entire staff to drop everything and run for their lives, neglecting the fires they had begun in preparing their lord's food.

Shidoubara narrowed her eyes. She noticed that this "demon" looked disturbingly human, and so very young--decades younger than herself, and hardly any older than her sixteen-year-old apprenctice now sitting to her right. His face looked practically innocent, as opposed to the weapon he carried over his shoulder, which had little rivulets of dried blood running down its huge, oddly double-edged blade, causing a pool of red to form at his feet as he stood still. The relaxed charm in his grin, the youthfulness, the innocence...it made him all the more frightening.

The younger apprentice clapped her hands together twice, and assumed a gesture of supplication. "PLEASE! Spare us! We didn't do anything!" she began pleading, the tears that ran down her cheeks finally hitting the floor.

"If you want a prisoner," the other student said defiantly, "take _me._ Let this girl and our teacher go."

The old woman gave her a sound smack on the arm in her fury that her student would suggest such a thing. "How dare you!" "Let these two girls go, and take me!"

The young man smiled nonchalantly at the middle-aged woman. "Hey." His dark smile mostly directed at the woman who had first challenged him.

The three women couldn't help but stare, horrified at his unnervingly casual greeting. The young apprentice licked her dry lips and wiped her overflowing eyes.

"So," began the demon again, tossing his head, and grinning viciously. "Where's your lord?" The question was asked quietly, almost inaudibly, compared to the crackling fire in the background.

To the old teacher's continued utter dismay, the woman answered. She coughed deeply, then forced herself to glare at the demon standing above her. "Out in the rear of this castle, beyond the bonsai garden. He--"

Even the iron-willed woman had to cringe as she saw the young man raise his massive weapon.

"Thanks!" he said, his bloodied halberd held high above the three of them.

The young apprentice screamed again and hid her face against the back of her teacher's body.

The old woman closed her eyes resignedly, laid a hand on her older student's head, and offered up a prayer for the young man's soul...if he had one.

The three of them heard a deafeningly loud, low metallic _whoosh_, and felt a mighty rush of air that drew their clothes, their hair, and the kitchen tools around them up in a vacuum. They heard the sounds of an explosion and of wood being smashed to bits.

Then all was still.

Realizing they were still alive, they all dared to look up.

The smoke was, for now, gone, the fire was contained to a far corner of the room, smothered by debris. The wall, where a door previously stood, had a huge, gaping hole.

The middle-aged woman was completely taken aback by the apparition. Surely he had wanted to kill them..._didn't_ he?

She shook her head. _Nevermind! It doesn't matter!_

The old teacher struggled again, kicking and pumping her arms weakly. "You shouldn't have offered yourself as a prisoner! What on earth were you thinking? And you shouldn't have told him where our lord was! That was unacceptable! It was--"

"I had to do it! I had to have that horrible demon away from us! Don't worry, Shidoubara, our lord will have more than enough resources to protect himself!" argued the woman. She turned to the young girl aside of her. "We can get out that way, now that we can see it. Let's do this before the fire spreads again. OK?"

After a bit of inattention, the young girl finally turned her pale face toward her helper. "Y-yeah."

The teacher lowered her head. "Thank you, girls. You are both so brave."

The middle aged woman grasped firmly her teacher's arm, smiling, but saying nothing in response to her teacher's compliment. She figured it was her duty to protect someone so lovely and so wise. "One, two..."

* * *

Stepping outside the wall where the door once stood, Bankotsu had to pause in wonder for a moment, as he at first thought his eyes were deceiving him. He could see little shimmers of white falling from the sky, gracefully floating down and resting on the ground around him. Figuring there was no way it could be snow, he couldn't resist holding out his palm to catch some of it as it fell. 

The white stuff fell lightly into his hand, and reflected an ever-so-faint pastel rainbow of color in the sunlight. He caught some of the stuff, and ran it gently between his fingers, raising an eyebrow in curiosity. It was soft, fluffy, weightless, and delicate.

_Huh. Feathers_.

He scowled. _Yeah...from this "phoenix" bird I've heard about..._

He threw the feather aside, and scanned the rear garden. He noticed the area closest to him was planted with all sorts of exotic flowers, and perfectly manicured stone paths wound around the differing patches of brilliant color. A pond with two koi was strategically placed in a far corner of the garden, with delicate benches not too far away.

Beyond the small, quaint garden, bonsai of all kinds were planted before a red Shinto gate, which marked where one of the stone paths continued. Beyond the gate was a lightly wooded area, the stone path turning into a well-worn, dewey-looking break between the shrubbery.

He grinned. He headed for the dewey path, with little feathers twirling in his wake. He now knew exactly where Yukio was, and exactly what he was doing.


	27. Chapter 27

Authoress' notes: Boy, do I need a disclaimer for this chapter like whoa.

So yeah, I'm just another one of those ignorant Americans, so obviously I know nothing about tea ceremony. But I had to include it in the story because...well, you'll see why. Heh.

All the formalproceedings in this chapter I sorta picked up from all over the internet again. If it were not for Google I'd really wouldn't be able to write any of this chapter. Heck, I might not have written the whole story.

Soo, as I have not been trained for years in the art of tea ceremony, I'm going to have to take some liberties with it. At least I hope I developed the atmosphere of tea ceremony since there is no way for me to be accurate in every single detail. If anyone can offer suggestions I'm happy to take them into consideration. Enjoy!

**Wayward Ransom, chapter27**.

by artisanrox

Yukio drew in the smoke of rich tobacco through the pipe he was holding, finally satisfied that there were no more small, snow-like bits of feathery down that fell from the sky. They were quite annoying, and they'd completely ruin the atmosphere of the occasion today.

Blowing the tobacco smoke out into the open air, he watched the puff of white curl around itself, and finally vanish. His personal guard, bearing the armor with the emblem of a silkworm, sat next to him, using the other tobacco pipe, enjoying the silence and serene beauty of the spring afternoon.

"So, did you find the sweets acceptable?" Yukio directed the question to his personal guard wearing the silkworm armor.

"My lord! They were wonderful!" answered the guard, with an unconscious bow of his head. "I am humbled by your graciousness. I would never have thought my lord would ever invite a simple guard to tea ceremony."

"Simple? I don't think so, as the silkworm armor isn't all that simple to master. You've been an exceptional guardian these past five years. It's the least I can do."

"My lord, I look forward to sampling some of our host's tea," said the guard before taking in a long drag of tobacco himself.

"You will soon enough." Yukio leaned backward, and looked upwards at the clouds. "Tea is good for the heart," he mused, trying to mentally arrange the clouds into shapes of fans, lotuses and koi. "And a bit of relaxation is the best thing one can do for oneself before a challenging situation," he added dryly.

Yukio's guard glanced over, puzzled. The question on the tip of his tongue was never asked, because a cloud of purple replaced the now-dissipated whiteness of Yukio's tobacco smoke.

The lord did nothing more than raise his eyebrows as Soumeikarasu appeared before him. "The boy is on his way," said the raven-demoness. "And everyone has run out of your castle. Obviously they had heard of him getting through your guards so easily and wanted to make sure their lives were preserved."

Yukio turned down his mouth for half a moment, brushed the few ashes away that happened to fall on his deep violet outer jacket, then took another deep drag on his pipe.

Soumeikarasu expected him to leap into action and begin delegating responsibilities, such as searching for deserters and soundly punishing them. But when he did not, her eyes widened with impatience. "Well? Aren't you going to do anything about it?"

"It's all collateral damage. I've planned this ceremony for weeks, Soumeikarasu," answered Yukio, and Soumeikarasu noted the strange lack of irritation in his voice. "I will not worry myself, nor break such an important engagement, over a child." He casually blew out more white smoke from his mouth.

"You will not be making _any_ provisions? This is no ordinary child, as you so often say yourself!"

"My provisions are already made. I have the girl, and that is all I need. He'll either allow her to attack until he's vulnerable, or he will make himself so - in more way than one - by killing her. Either way, you will get him. If by some chance I misjudge the bird's abilities, or get a little too carried away as I remember his impudence, he will end up dead anyway, and so she will practically beg you to take her out of grief."

"Interesting."

"This boy cannot be taken alive by using nothing but force, Soumeikarasu, and I know you most certainly need him alive."

"Even though force certainly worked in the past...didn't it?" argued the demoness.

"It only worked temporarily, before he was revived, as you reported to me. You hit him with force, he'll just hit back harder. Even if he has to come back from the dead to do it," he said, knocking some ashes from his pipe. "He's been too highly trained, he posesses too many skills and talent. I am aware the two of them, him and the girl, are connected. I have not forgotten that in ten years. And he is, after all, a young boy. I know that his mind, his heart, will be the death of him...not a battlefield or a sparring opponent. Force will only end up killing him or ourselves," he continued inbetween drags. "We must be judicious, as I suggested to my former lord, to accomplish our objective."

"Yes, there is certainly more to battle than simple swords and sorcery!" interjected the demoness, making her black feather-fan appear in her hand.

"That's why he may empty the castle and take everything in it if he so pleases," said the daimyo after inhaling a puff of smoke. "The more we resist, the deeper he'll dig in, and when he does that, he becomes only stonger. He's been trained so. I've seen it myself. But he will resist most of all the moment you attempt to posess him. So that's why we need to use the girl, and be cautious, and lose what we must lose, to gain what we must gain." He turned down his mouth wryly. "And do not underestimate me. I do have backup plans, also."

Soumeikarasu raised a suspicious eyebrow.

Glad to change the subject, Yukio continued, leaning back a bit in a relaxed fashion. "So, in the meantime, why do you not join us for tea? I've asked our host to prepare a reserved place for you."

Soumeikarasu turned her nose up, and opened her fan. "I've no use for tea ceremony. Why should I go?"

Yukio blew out a large puff of smoke. "Because it would do you good to appreciate other things besides posessing a strong body. Once you have that body, you'll want to know all the things you may do with it. I would like you to, and you absolutely do not have to drink tea or eat sweets to enjoy it. Think of it as my first official gift in our partnership."

The demoness cocked her dark eyebrow upwards. She humphed indecisively, and gazed out into the horizon while she thought. Upon reaching her decision, she made herself solid against her better judgement, and slapped her fan into her opposing hand.

"I cannot promise you I will have enough energy to begin my attempts at controlling him - "

"I know you will not," said Yukio, blowing out another puff of white, "but no matter. Let the girl do your work for you."

The demoness hummed again, and turned back to her partner. "Fine. I will wait here with you." Now that she was solid, she could smell and feel the white cloud of tobacco smoke which Yukio unwittingly had blown around her. She wrinkled her nose and began to bat at the smoke with her feather-fan.

The gong outside the teahouse was rung five times, and Yukio noted to himself that his host was ready to begin the second half of their engagement. The lord decided to relax just a bit more in the outdoor waiting area, and take a few more puffs of tobacco while admiring the host's hard work in getting the woodsy area surrounding the waiting area so relaxingly clean, trimmed, and perfect.

Soon enough, a round-faced man small of stature, but radiating an aura of intelligent calm and tranquil service, quietly approached the party, his hands neatly folded across his chest.

Yukio stood up, and so did his guard and the toweringly tall demoness, who hid her face coyly with her black fan as their host approached. Yukio and his guard both took their last drags, then emptied their tobacco pipes. Both men gave their host a silent, respectful bow, and the host renturned in part, bowing lower than either of them. Yukio, by all rights, expecting the demoness, who did not bow, to make an ascerbic remark to their host.

No scathing remarks came from the demoness, however, to Yukio's amusement. And although Soumeikarasu did not bow, she did lower her head a bit, with what Yukio noted, was the slightest hint of a grin. Whether the demoness' lack of propriety upset his host or not was not readable, as the man continued to smile pleasantly and calmly at each of them.

Yukio was substanially impressed with his host's ability to placate even Soumeikarasu - or, at least get a grin out of her, as she was one of the most defiant personalties he had ever come in contact with. Yukio did know, in the few times he had scheduled tea ceremony with his host, that the small man's relaxing aura was in fact, quite impressive, but now, it could be appreciated that he had more of an amazing talent than Yukio had ever appreciated.

The host turned around, and all were silent as he gracefully began to lead them back to the teahouse.

Soumeikarasu looked backwards for an instant, and caught Yukio's eye. "Absolutely charming! Isn't he?"

The trio welcomed the melodic calls of songbirds as they walked over the delicately dampened, grassy ground to the teahouse. After the party was finished purifying their hands, their host departed from them, and entered the teahouse through his own designated entrance. Yukio's guard was already in the teahouse, and Yukio was just about to stoop through the threshold when he heard a whispered word spoken in back of him.

"Incense..."

Yukio stood back up, and turned around to look at the demoness. Her jet-black eyes were softened greatly, and she fanned herself in order to take in more of the woodsy incense the host had provided for them.

"It smells so lovely. A blend of roses and sandalwood, with a trace of lilies."

"You have a far greater appreciation of things than I had thought, Soumeikarasu."

The demoness humphed again with her nose in the air. "Lack of appreciation! Quite the opposite!" She stopped fanning for a moment. "I very much appreciate the things that I can temporarily do while solid...smell, taste, touch. However," she added with a definite note of sadness, "it takes so much work, I cannot be immersed in anything for very long. It will be so wonderful...to..."

"To be able to be constantly immersed without putting forth so much effort to maintain it?"

Soumeikarasu startled at his understanding. "Why, yes. The smell of a lily, the taste of a pomegranate, the feeling of silk...all so much work." She smiled at her business partner. "Other demons and most especially, _humans_...don't understand how well they have it. That's why whenever I can do these things...I never forget what it's like." The demoness sighed, and closed her fan. "Tea ceremony...reminds me of too many wonderful things."

Yukio said nothing, but bowed his head at her, as a signal to enter the teahouse first, to which she obliged.

Seated on the finely woven straw mats inside, the three made themselves comfortable while awaiting their host. Yukio noticed the lovely hand-made yellow vase with the simple arrangement of two white peonys in it. The daimyo point out the arrangemnt to his fellow guests, and the demoness admired their fragrance, while the guard bearing the silkworm armor was inclined to ask their host about the vase's story. Yukio noted that it indeed looked like a work of art, and would also be interested in knowing who the artist was that created such a lovely vase.

Soon enough, their host stepped into the tearoom bearing his tools, bowing again, smiling warmly. Everyone this time, including the demoness, smiled and bowed in return. The host placed the tools gently on the floor, and turned, walking into the backroom again.

After making a few additional brief trips to the preparation room, their host sat down also, and proceeded to purify the instruments in his use. Yukio was amazed at the skill with which he cleansed the instruments, first with water, then with a pure white cloth. The actions, he saw, were clearly ceremonial, however, they never stepped into the realm of mechanical or conditioned. On the contrary, they seemed rather _instinctive_. Their host surely was a master with many years of training in various artistic fields.

Yukio continued to admire his host's skill while he man prepared the tea. At some times, Yukio could faintly gather, he even seemed like he was _combining_ schools of thought. Nevertheless, he was warm, hospitable, and gracious, and it only made sense for Yukio and his guests to offer their host to sit and chat, and eat and drink along with them as he did for the first part of their ceremony.

Their host finished whisking their tea, and he handed the bright yellow bowl containing it to his guest of honor.

Yukio took a sip of the dark, rich, greenish-black liquid.

"Is it to your liking? Shall I make it stronger?"

"No, no," politely answered the lord. "It's perfect. This seems to be a prime blend, also."

"Oh, yes, it is," answered the host. "I am of the philosophy that a blend of what is the finest will create something even finer. So I worked for quite a long time on achieving the right balance of tastes."

"Incredible. Interesting philosophy you have." Yukio lifted up the bowl to eye level. "And this tea bowl. It's quite a beautiful creation. And it seems to be made in a similar fashion to your flower vase and your water container."

"You have a sharp eye, my lord. All my earthenware containers were made of the same batch of clay. They were painted from the same dye, and they were never separated from each other. I do not use them very often, however, when I do, I use every piece in the set. I think using the set as a whole offers a sense of _balance_, considering the fact that I use many differing philosophies when serving my guests."

Yukio hummed in thought, wiped the bowl with a handkerchief, and handed the bowl over to his guard.

The guard took a small sip, then held the bowl up also to admire it. "How long have you had this set?"

"I have personally had the set since I had completed my training; however, it's well over a century old, and is priceless. My teacher told me it was the last set created by the artist before he passed on."

The guard raised his eyebrows in amazement. "Definitely his crowning achievement!" he said before wiping the rim of the bowl delicately, and handing the bowl to Soumeikarasu.

Soumeikarasu smiled graciously, and took the bowl in her dark hands. "This bowl seems a bit heavier than what I have noted in other teabowls."

"Yes," their host concurred. "The artist also believed in a sense of balance, so he set out to make earthenware that was a bit heavier, so it may be grounded. The brightness of the yellow glaze complements the weight nicely."

"I agree."

The guard, emboldened by the relaxed atmosphere, posited a question to the demoness. "You are familiar with the nuances of earthenware?"

"Yes," answered the dark woman. "I posessed the mind of a black market dealer once." She smiled at the rest of the guests, and her host in turn. "It was so I could take the opportunity to handle such lovely works of art in mass quantities without tiring myself so much."

For the first time, their host raised an eyebrow in concern, but listened attentively.

"I usually take the minds and bodies of strong human warriors, but at that time, I felt I deserved a vacation, and the dealer was easily taken." She lowered the bowl briefly as she reminisced. "I've learned so much from that experience! It was well worth it," added Soumeikarasu casually, raising the bowl back up to her eye-level and admiring it some more.

The eyes of the guard widened. Vacation, indeed. "...oh..."

The demoness reminisced for a few more moments, then realized that she had not sampled her host's tea as of yet. She curled her fingers even more carefully around the pretty yellow bowl, and brought the bowl close to her lips.

And that's when a deep sound, like concentrated air, was heard not far from one of the corners of the teahouse.

A massive, steel-colored blur bit into the top of the wall behind the armored guard, flying downwards and right down through the floor, hitting the ground below the raised teahouse.

The sheer force of the wind flying out from the weapon sent pieces of shattered wood all around the small tearoom. It knocked over the yellow flowerpot, spilling its water all over, and sent the white flowers and the host's wooden tea instruments clear across the room The terrified host shouted in fright and covered his head with his arms.

The demoness instantly made herself unsolid, and the priceless tea bowl fell to the floor, where it hit the straw mat with a deep _thud_, and split quite neatly in half. The demoness wasn't disturbed in the least by the near-boiling hot tea sinking into the discolored mat directly underneath her knees.

The entire wall, separated cleanly from the rest of the building, dropped downwards, and fell outwards to the ground. It hit the ground, sending up a thick cloud of dust in all four directions.

The wall came to rest on the ground, when a broad-shouldered, dark-complexioned young man, dressed completely in white, came into view of the party inside the teahouse. He took a few steps onto the fallen wall. A frighteningly heavy-looking, halberd-like, double edged weapon was slung casually over his shoulder. His knee-length braid flowed out behind him like a young tiger's tail, and his free hand rested on a hip. A menacing smirk was on his deceptively innocent-looking, handsome face.

"My lord." A positively devilish grin belied the true nature of the young man's polite greeting, during which his full attention was aimed at the daimyo seated at the far end of the teahouse. Wild-looking cobalt eyes peered out from thick dark eyebrows.

Yukio narrowed his own eyes at the intruder.

_Damn you to hell, you bastard child!_ cursed Soumeikarasu to herself, rising from her place as she recognized the young man by the purple cross-shaped scar on his forehead. _I was just about to sample the damned tea!_


	28. Chapter 28

Authoress' Notes: The Chinese repeating crossbow was (is) a real weapon, and had a box, holder-type thing on top of it that many bolts could be placed in to make the weapon have the ability of rapid-fire. Think of it as sort of an automatic version of the normal crossbow.

I'm considering editing this entire story, making it manga cannon only. It really won't change the story all that much, as it's just for my own peace of mind. But just in case you see some earier chapters edited, you'll know why.

And I do not own Bankotsu (sigh!) or anything in the Inuyasha universe. But all the original characters ARE mine. Duh, that's why they're called Original Characters. (lol!)

**Wayward Ransom, chapter 28**.

by artisanrox

The tea ceremony host lowered his arm while the dust cleared. He had put his arm up in front of his head in an effort to procect himself from the flying splinters, which filled the teahouse while the wall had been chopped off.

He cringed in the farthest corner of the teahouse, looking around quickly and anxiously, trying to absorb what had just happened. He couldn't believe what he had just seen, and when he looked outside the teahouse, couldn't believe that the dark young man outside could have possibly caused so much damage single-handedly.

The host then checked his own person for injury, and, when finding none, surveyed his guests, who were still sitting silently, cut off from completing their peaceful ceremony. The directed glares of the guard, the demoness, and the daimyo all led to the young man outside the remaining walls of the teahouse.

His eyes then fell upon the broken halves of his prized yellow teabowl, worth an inheritance, and the mess of tea, worth a fortune in powdered form, which now discolored the straw mats which lined the floor.

His prized set of tools...now destroyed, his set so much less complete for the sake of the broken teabowl. The irreplaceable tea bowl was now worthless. The teabowl may have only been broken in half...but his heart! Oh, his poor heart! It had been shattered in a million pieces by terrible, cruel misfortune!

Crystal-clear tears began to stream from his large brown eyes, and the watery globes fell from his round face to the floor in large, splashing puddles, as he beheld the destruction of one of his most prized posessions. He shuffled on his hands and feet over to where the broken halves of the teabowl rested, picked up half a teabowl in each hand, and commenced weeping loudly over them.

Yukio rose to his feet, almost stepping on the tea ceremony host as he blindly shuffled on the floor in front of him. Never taking his eyes off the young assassin, Yukio majestically began walking to the rear of the teahouse.

He passed by the immaterial demoness, and the guard bearing the silkworm armor on the way to exiting the now three-sided teahouse.

"My lord!" said the guard quietly as the daimyo walked by him.

"Wait for instructions."

"Yes, my lord!" quickly answered the guard, rising up after Yukio had passed him, and was on his way down the two small steps to the ground.

Soumeikarasu also arose, and found herself dizzy, the effort expended in remaining solid from the tea ceremony catching up to her. She scowled at the rest of the men in her company, knowing she was extremely weakened, and would not be of much more use to anyone...including herself. She also knew, through explanation by Yukio, that if somehow, the girl got a lucky break, she was one of the few that could make her life quite difficult.

_I need to get away to recharge after remaining solid for so long...but...better not leave yet. I need to see how this battle between the boy and my...partner_, she thought, scowling even deeper at the word, _fares before I can plan my next move._

Outside the teahouse, the afternoon sun glinted of the blade of the Bankotsu, and an eerily faint, purplish glow could be seen on the curved, sickle-like edge on the other end of the long shaft. Bankotsu tapped the shaft of his weapon on his shoulder in anticipation while watching Yukio step onto ground a distance from him, and stop to face him. "We meet again, Master Yukio."

Yukio calmly regarded the young man. "I have a proposition to make," he began politely.

Bankotsu's mouth turned down, and his brow furrowed deeply. "There's nothing you can offer me, Master Yukio. There are more than enough reasons for me to take your life. Some are in the past," he said, beginning to grin darkly, "and some just fell in my lap when I escaped from the Sanzu."

"Anyway, the proposition," continued the daimyo, ignoring the young man's refusal. He began casually removing his royal purple jacket off his right arm, and tucking it into his belt, displaying one side of a narrow-sleeved, ornate, crested white shirt underneath the jacket. "Surrender yourself to Soumeikarasu's complete command here," he said, turning ever so slightly toward the demoness to his far left, who had made her own way to the ground and was now standing directly in front of the tea house. "In return, she can give you demonic abilities you've never had. Most importantly, demonically miraculous healing."

Bankotsu, disgusted, gave the daimyo a puff of air in response.

"Think about it, boy. That has always been the bane of your existence, hasn't it? Quite frustrating to have the strength and speed of a demon...and the body of a frail human. A terrible imbalance. Soumeikarasu will be more than able to correct that imbalance."

Yukio did not see any sign of concurrence in the young man. That was fine. He did not expect it. "If you're not willing to accept my proposal, then you will simply have to face the consequences," he added, and a circle-shaped, purplish glow could be seen underneath his white inner shirt, "and lose your soul in the process."

Bankotsu laughed derisively at the daimyo. "I don't have to worry about losing my soul. I don't have one to lose." His amused expression melted into a menacing scowl. "_You_ made sure of _that_, my lord."

Yukio sighed in rather anticipated annoyance. "Never was any sense in talking to you, boy." _That's why, in training, we had to resort to controlling you by other means._ "I'm finished being polite with you."

Bankotsu was also at the limit of his patience. He was just about to remove the banryuu from his shoulder and ready his stance, when he felt an intense stab to the right side of his back.

He was hit hard by a large force, blindsiding him from behind. It forced a loud grunt from his lungs, and carried him along by sheer momentum. It threw him into the ground, causing him to lose his grip on his weapon, and the huge banryuu impaled itself deeply in the grassy ground.

The force pushing him angled downward, plowing him through the dirt for quite a distance, when finally it angled upwards. Bankotsu tumbled a few times when the force released him, then he was left sitting on the ground, a bit shaken, a long gash cut into the grass led up to where he sat. Judging from the pain, he knew that whatever had hit him caused a nasty, tearing puncture wound on his back.

After a matter of seconds, he recovered his senses. He saw that the area was once again experiencing a shower of down-like bits of fluff...and they led right up to the huge, phoenix-like, orangish-white, crested demonic bird who was flying low over Yukio.

"So that's your bird, my lord!" said Bankotsu, snickering, in spite of being completely confused by the weird bird's appearance. _That's strange, _thought Bankotsu. _The townspeople called it a phoenix. It looks like a phoenix...but yet it doesn't. _

The bird, he now saw, was carrying some items in its oddly webbed, heavily clawed feet. When the daimyo was directly underneath, he caught in either hand what the bird was carrying - a beautifully elaborate repeating crossbow in his right hand, a katana in his left, all of which he immediately proceeded to arrange on his belt.

The odd bird then landed next to Yukio, and, being well over twice his height, lowered its head so the daimyo could remove a quiver of crossbow bolts hanging from its neck.

Bankotsu saw the bird was gazing at him strangely as Yukio was removing the bolts it carried. It blinked its eyes, each eye surrounded in a circle of white feathers. It cocked its head, and the long, leash-like lanyard of leather that encircled its neck swung back and forth.

Bankotsu picked himself off the ground, and readied his stance. "I'll have both your head and that bird's rolling side by side when I'm done here!"

He ran over to his weapon, and grasped its shaft. Never stopping, he twirled the heavy halberd around, the right side of his back reminding him of his injury. He jumped into the air, throwing both himself and his weapon at the bird.

The bird barely dodged, flying upwards in a flash. The halberd bit into the ground deeply, causing an explosion of rocks and soil to rise from the ground.

"Huh. Pretty quick," noted Bankotsu while the dust swirled around him.

Yukio, who was now near the young man's side, grinned. "Are you sure you don't recognize her?"

"There's no one here I recognize but you, Yukio!" Bankotsu said, readying his weapon to swing again, while carefully making himself aware of the positions of bird, guard, demoness, and daimyo.

"Hm. Of course you don't recognize the girl in this form. I had to raise her to bring it out of her. Her demonic abilities only fully came out after she was driven to do so. Driven by anger, and hate, and fear."

Bankotsu glanced over to his right at the bird, which was hovering in the air.

"That is an apricot mandarin duck demoness, boy."

Bankotsu relaxed his stance to rest a hand on his hip again, laughing. "You're attempting to kill me using a _demonic duck_ as a weapon. That's hilarious, Yukio! You're what, pushing 50 now? You've really slipped, and you've given me yet another reason to take your head. I think you've become much too crazy to live any longer."

"Look closely. You know this girl quite well. One of her forms is what you see here." Yukio pointed above, at the orange-white bird. "Her demonic nature was kept well hidden, even subdued, by her contact with humans. Lucky enough for her, she looked and acted much too human, and too harmless, to be totally rejected by them."

_What?_ thought the young man. _What girl is he talking about?_ "Bullcrap." _A duck. A goddamned duck! I've been hit up by the villagers, by that old woman, to kill a duck! _"I've been lied to by both humans and demons, Yukio. I don't buy your stories. You and your ridiculous bird's heads will still roll."

"Don't underestimate her, boy. A demonic duck can be a marvelous weapon, and I will show you why." He looked up at the bird, flying in the distance. "Dive attack."

As he spoke, the purplish glow under his white shirt returned.

The bird tucked its wings and came in at lightning speed toward Bankotsu. Bankotsu readied his weapon, grinning devilishly in response.

Coming in closer, Bankotsu noticed something off about the bird's direction, and it caused him to lower his brow in confusion. However, he still tensed his body, preparing to slice the demon in half lengthwise.

He hefted his double edged blade around, and swiped at the incoming bird.

However, all that was cut, was a few feathertips.

The bird flew past Bankotsu, over his head, leaving him in a little storm of twirling, iridescent, downy feathers.

Bankotsu came to a realization, and his eyes widened. The bird was heading for _his opponent_. It was heading for Yukio.

A brilliant purple flash appeared from under the daimyo's shirt, and the bird seemed to almost screech in pain when a matching whitish flash erupted from its feathery breast. It lost control of its flight, and nosedived into the ground, cutting a large gash in the ground, sending grass flying in all directions.

The bird landed directly in front of Yukio, its head at his feet.

Yukio reached into his shirt, uncovering a necklace. He took it off his neck, with his right hand, and the end of the leather lanyard around the bird's neck landed conveniently in his left. "Insolent girl!" he said, flashing the pendant on the necklace haughtily at the bird. "Might I remind you that if you want to get out of this situation alive, you will_ not _oppose my direction!"

Bankotsu's eyes widened in disbelief as he watched the bird right itself. He saw that the black opal embedded into the pendant on the gold necklace fit the description of Masakisho's precious missing stone. _This bird is the thing the old man is using the stone to control,_ he thought, narrowing his eyes. _This bird clearly isn't interested in fighting me. _

_In that case,_ thought Bankotsu, narrowing his eyes, _fighting the bird ain't my style. I should just kill the daimyo and take the necklace back to Masakisho. They can decide what to do with the bird._

"The _sooner_ you complete your task, the sooner I will revert you out of this form!" continued the daimyo to the bird. He gave the lanyard a hard pull.

Taking note of Yukio's continued reprimand, he had to wonder. _Yukio brought a girl back from the dead, in the form of this weird duck demon, to fight me?_

He shook his head. _No, I won't believe a word the old man says. I've been lied to enough._ "Your goofy pet really hates you, Yukio!" taunted Bankotsu, at the ready again. "In that case, it'll be all the more easy for me!"

Yukio grinned. "Either your death or the girl's...what was her name? Was it Akiko?...will be satisfactory to me." Yukio grinned broadly, grasping the pendant firmly in his hand. "I'm handing her over to you! Kill her if you like!"

Bankotsu's ready stance loosened a bit, and his brow furrowed again at the sound of his former teacher's name. _Akiko? _


	29. Chapter 29

Authoress' notes: I'm so sorry, this story is soo much longer than I planned it! (heh...)

**Wayward Ransom, chapter 29**.

by artisanrox

_The old guy has to be kidding! _Thought Bankotsu, gazing intently at the bird. _But...the bird tried to kill him, not me...I don't understand..._

The daimyo, noting Bankotsu's hesitation, glanced satisfactorily over at the demoness and the guard, both which grinned back, reveling in the opponent's confusion. Yukio released the lanyard and looked up at the bird. "Watersweep," he said quietly, the stone in his hand glowing purple, and the white light appearing again on the bird's breast.

The bird arose quickly again, and, hanging in the air, flapped its wings, screeching uncomfortably.

It brought the tips of its wings together momentarily, and Bankotsu soon saw a blue wave spiraling up from the ground around him at his feet, and growing upwards, compeltely encircling him. When it reached his head, it crashed inwards, and Bankotsu suddenly had a crushing, drowning-like sensation overwhelm him. Losing his grip on his weapon again, he hung painfully suspended in air and demonic water.

When the wave subsided, he coughed heavily, and was brought down to a knee. Stubbornly, he reached out for the shaft of his weapon.

"Your stupid pet...didn't even scratch me, Yukio!" said Bankotsu, taking an opportunity to charge at the daimyo.

_I knew he wouldn't go down easily. Still, I have the advantage. _Yukio, brought his palms together, entwining his fingers, and concentrated.

This time, a hot, red glow surrounded the quickly advancing young man. Yukio threw both hands towards Bankotsu, and with the sound similar to shattering glass, the red glow exploded into a bright white flash, obscuring Bankotsu from Yukio's sight.

Yukio regarded the white light with a calm countenance...

...until he saw Bankotsu, seemingly unaffected by the spell he had cast, still advancing toward him.

It was Yukio's turn to be thrown off guard, and he startled ever so slightly in shock. _This version of the "Bridle" spell should have brought him to the ground! It always had in the past...and was much weaker back then! Is...is it possible that he has gotten so much stronger since I last dealt with him?_ The pendant in his hand glowed purple again.

"I won't lose to your pet, and won't lose to your old magic tricks, either!" yelled Bankotsu, bringing down the blade, this time with his left hand, on the daimyo.

The blade was caught in mid-air by the bird's claws, which left Bankotsu straining for a moment in an aborted effort to finish his downward sweep. The pause allowed Yukio to get out of the weapon's reach.

"_Damn you_!" cursed Bankotsu. Regaining his balance, he literally threw the bird from the weapon by jumping high into the air, swinging both powerfully in a fit of frustration. The bird's momentum caused it to be flung from the blade, and its claws made a high pitched ringing sounded as it scraped against the metal. It tumbled in the air a few times, leaving a trail of iridescent downy feathers, then regained itself, hovering in the air.

Bankotsu, still extended in an extended position from flinging away the bird, closed his eyes, and sighed. He grimaced with a corner of his mouth while he thought. _I can't believe I actually got pissed enough to curse a **demonic duck**._

"Air feather volley!" called out Yukio, while his opponent was off balance, and the bird gave its wings a mighty flap, causing many feathers to fly out from its wings.

Bankotsu, hearing the flapping of wings signaling another attack, focused on his opponent agian. He dodged and blocked the projectiles, which impaled themselves deeply into the ground like arrows.

Yukio then caused the bird to use the swirling, constrictive water attack again. This time, Yukio caused the bird to concentrate its energy into this one attack, pushing the bird to its limits in holding the spell. Bankotsu remained hanging in the air for what seemed like an eternity of crushing, drowning pain. When released, Bankotsu was brought down to his side on the ground, holding his chest, hacking and coughing, trying to clear his lungs.

Suddenly, another hard hit, this time from the front sent him rolling on the ground. The bird stood above him, and, flapping its wings for balance. The claws on its feet sunk in when it took a hold of Bankotsu's armored midsection. Tiny cracks appeared in the armor's surface, and it shattered, then fell to the ground in small pieces.

Bankotsu made a blind attempt to punch at the bird, and its leg easily dodged his fist. It came in again, clawing deeply into Bankotsu's back, now that the armor was removed. Bankotsu succeeded in forcing himself to not even flinch from the awful, stabbing sensation.

Yukio had the bird pull back, and it hovered above Bankotsu, blood dripping from the claws on its right foot. Bankotsu was now panting heavily from the sheer effort of blocking out multiple levels of pain.

Yukio was quick to order the finishing move. "Fire feather cannon!" he called out loudly to the bird.

The flash came out of the bird's breast.

Yukio was satisfied with the bird's work, inspite of its headstrong behavior. Bankotsu refused to acknowledge it as a serious opponent, most likely because Yukio's words were playing on his mind. The bird was on its way to completely disabling him, and it was only aiding Yukio by defying him. It clearly showed that there was a human mind working in the bird's demonic form. "How fortunate of me to be in posession of a demon that is capable of attacking using all elements!"

But the bird screeched, and did nothing but hang in the air, once again defying the daimyo's orders.

"You pathetic girl!" Refusing to let his opening go, Yukio kept trying to regain control of the bird.

The bird, exhausted from its elemental attacks, lost the battle of wills, and tucked its wings, heading toward Bankotsu in another viciously quick nose dive.

_This goofy bird...can't be Akiko! I won't believe that!_ thought the young man, still recovering from the devestating attacks he had just received, trying to ignore the gashes in his back, watching the bird speed toward him through blurred vision.

_But...what if it is! She always did look a little weird...and that thing's refused commands three times already!_

The bird was still speeding toward him. Yukio grinned, again seeing the young warrior's hesitation.

_No matter...this is a deathmatch. I have to..._

Bankotsu coughed again, blindly feeling around for his weapon, which he knew was somewhere to his left side at the front.

_Even though...it shouldn't be this way..._

Yukio frowned. The demoness clucked her tongue.

_I was told to use the curved edge to kill it. The villagers said they'd rather it obliterated than simply cut to pieces. It'll work...if it's not that strong of a demon..._

Reaching it, he felt for the lighter end, and flipped the curved edge to the front.

_It shouldn't be this way..._

_But it has to..._

_No... _

It's not her...

He picked up his halberd, and just before the bird was ready to crash into him, Bankotsu, using his right hand, threw his weapon out on front of him, confusion and profound sadness clouding his face.

With another agonized screech, the bird was pulling up, in another conscious effort to miss its target.

But it was too late for the bird. The purified, curved edge of the weapon bit into its breast, causing a brilliant white light to flash.

Bankotsu continued to hold out the weapon in front of himself with a stiff arm. In the blinding white light, a near explosion of iridescent, downy feathers fell to the ground.

The feathers continued to fall...and as Bankotsu continued to look into them, he noticed a mist, taking shape in a vaguely humanoid form in the center of the fading white light.

Bankotsu's eyes went wide in shock, as he saw the figure of an unconscious, naked young girl appear in mid air. The lanyard, which had been around the bird's neck, dropped limply to the ground below the girl.

A long distance behind Yukio, still standing by the teahouse, Soumeikarasu frowned. "This is clearly unexpected!" she confided to the guard aside her. "I have the feeling we should leave_ my partner_ to his own devices, and make our way out of here soon."

The guard raised his eyebrows in shock at the subject of desertion. "But...Soumeikarasu!"

The demoness cut him off by raising a finger to her mouth, and resumed watching the proceedings.

The girl hung above the young man, orangeish-brown ankle-length hair swirling around her, as the feathers and light cleared. Bankotsu lowered his weapon to the ground.

He smiled.

"Damn," commented Yukio.

Not losing any momentum from the nosedive, the girl's momentum threw her right on top of him. Her body hit his hard, and it knocked him back on his elbows. Her arms wound around his neck. Bankotsu was enveloped in the softness of the girl's small, fair, limp body.

And he found that hehad to scream. Every square inch of his body with which the girl came in contact, there was nothing but the feeling of white-hot, searing torture.

Yukio fisted a hand, smiling ear to ear. He had gotten over being annoyed that Bankotsu should have had his weapon altered to change the girl back to her human form, and was instead pleased at the success of his magical attacks.

The young man's pain-racked cries as he tried to get the girl off him could be heard clear across the large garden where they battled. He remembered those screams very well from many, many training sessions in the past. _So he was being obstinate, and hiding it. "Bridle" does work quite well, after all!_


	30. Chapter 30

Authoress' notes: I never,_ever _thought I'd end up writing a thirty-plus chapter fanfic when I first laid eyes on Bankotsu, sittin' on that hill, tryin' to write that stupid threatening letter. Oh, the unexpectedturns our lives take! (rolls eyes, then laughs stupidly)

**Wayward Ransom, chapter 30**.

by artisanrox

Soumeikarasu watched the extraordinary discomfort of the young man as he wrapped an arm around the girl, then lowered her to the ground, all the time a twisted expression of extreme agony on his face.

"Get that weapon away from him!" ordered Yukio to his two helpers.

Soumeikarasu looked over to the guard in the silkwork armor, mkaing herself solid. "Help me," she said to the guard, "that thing looks damned heavy!" The guard nodded.

The demoness instantly took the form of a huge, demonic raven. She leaped into the air with a flapping of her black wings, and swooped over to where Bankotsu and the girl were on the ground.

The guard ran over, mirroring the demoness' direction on the ground.

Using every last reserve of strength, the demoness wrapped her claws around the shaft of the banryuu, and not without great effort, began to straining upwards, trying to at least pick the weapon up enough to drag it an inconvenient distance away from the young man.

The guard, now in the past of the demoness' direction, stood a distance away from the weapon. He caused filament-like cords to be released from his fingertips. Grasping them with his other arm, he began pulling on the weapon, aiding Soumeikarasu in removing it from Bankotsu's easy grasp.

It worked, and slowly but surely, the huge banryuu started scraping along on the ground, getting carried away by the two of them.

Bankotsu succeeded in getting the girl off his body, and glared back at the two opponents pulling away his weapon, his breathing heavy and strained, the back of his white jacket now bright red from the gashes on his back.

A dark shadow enveloped him, and Bankotsu startled when he heard Yukio, now a shorter distance away.

"Have you forgotten about _me_, boy?"

Bankotsu scowled. He watched Yukio cooly throw the necklace into the air.

"I'll kill one of you, one way or the other," Yukio stated simply.

The necklace now in mid-air, Yukio drew his crossbow, raising it up, aiming it at the purplish black opal in the pendant.

He squeezed the trigger.

A bolt flew upwards, and, within a hairsbreadth of smashing the opal to pieces, missed the pendant, as a long piece of leathery material wrapped around it, and pulled it out of harm's way.

The necklace landed in Bankotsu's ready hand. He had used the lanyard as a lasso to retrieve the pendant. "I think I'll be keeping this for now," he snarled, "so I don't think you'll be doing anything to it anytime soon!"

Yukio, thoroughly angered, lowered the crossbow, and squeezed the trigger twice, aiming for both the girl's and Bankotsu's heads.

Bankotsu dropped the necklace, and easily caught one bolt in either hand.

He paused and gave Yukio a wicked grin. "...getting nervous?" he asked the daimyo, his voice fierce, intense, and unnervingly quiet.

Yukio's eyes went wide, and he began to sweat.

_I don't like that painful-looking spell at all,_ thought the demoness in her demonic bird-form, flicking her depthless black eyes at an increasingly uncomfortable Yukio. _There is a chance my demonic nature will cancel it out when I take him...but I'm not so sure of that, _debated Soumeikarasu.

Bankotsu heard something snap at his feet. Filaments of a light, airy material were now fastened around the pendant, and Yukio's guard, wearing the silkworm armor, was now at Bankotsu's left. The guard snickered, and was ready to pull on the pendant, in an effort to recover it for his lord.

Bankotsu reared back, and with a jump in the air, flung the bolt in his right hand hard at the guard.

With demonic accuracy, the bolt impaled the guard deeply right between the eyes. The guard gave a horrifying scream, bringing his hands up to his head, and falling to his knees. The filaments that wrapped around the necklace became untensed, and came unattached with a snapping sound.

Soumeikarasu turned herself unsolid and returned to her human form. She growled hoarsely, lying on the ground, thoroughy exhausted. _Now I **must **be on my way. The boy will win. _She gave a hint of a grin. _How frighteningly deadly he is. Makes me want him all the more! But..._ she said, scowling. _Not today,_ she thought, disappearing into a mist of purple miasma.

Drawn out of his sorrow by the ungodly noise, the tea ceremony host poked his head around the wall of the teahouse, peering at the scene. Seeing the guard's agonized body and the crossbow bolt sticking out of his head, the host's face turned green. Feeling quite nauseous, he hurriedly gathered up whatever of his tools he could carry, jumped out of the damaged teahouse, and sprinted toward the downhill trail that led to the nearest town. Tears flew out of his eyes, catching the sun's rays and making little trails of shimmery lights as he ran.

Back in the garden of the castle, Bankotsu turned his attention to the daimyo. "It's just you and me..._my lord_!" murmured Bankotsu, smiling sarcastically despite his clenched teeth, flipping the heavy bolt back and forth through his fingers deftly like a well-seasoned gambler. His quiet voice was almost drowned out by the screams from the dying guard to his far right.

While the young man and the daimyo were locked in heated glares, the guard bearing the silkworm armor dropped over dead, and his agonized screams gave way to ghostly silence.

Yukio now gritted his teeth, holding the crossbow out in front of him stiffly. His face paled. He was now_ thoroughly _unnerved.


	31. Chapter 31

Authoress' Notes: I SO do not own Inuyasha or anything in the Inuyasha universe. My original characters are...well...mine.

Thanks for your continued reading of my stories!

**Wayward Ransom, chapter 31**.

by artisanrox

"_You...brat..." _spat Yukio, his shaking crossbow aimed at the heart of the young man calmly standing a short distance away from him. Yukio assured himself of victory many times, but the obstinate boy had succeeded in overcoming the spell that had always helped to make him pliable, giving the military the opportunity to train him to have the strength and speed of a demon. He had also succeeded in keeping the stone of the monks in one piece, and he had also killed Yukio's personal guard.

A huge riot was heard toward the direction of Yukio's castle. Yukio glanced over in that direction, and between the shrubbery, could barely see many, many villagers running here and there, posessions and riches from his castle in their hands. A grey plume of smoke and ashes was rising, and could be seen above the trees.

Frightening in his confidence, the boy continued to flip Yukio's heavy crossbow bolt in between his fingers deftly, taking a few easy steps forward, glaring at Yukio with bloodthirsty eyes. "Looks like the villagers have come to take back what you owe them. _They_ want your money, your silks, your scrolls." He grinned devilishly, brandishing the bolt at Yukio. "_I, _however...want your _head!"_

Yukio, desperately digging deep to find some nerve, backed away slowly as Bankotsu advanced. "You'll always be a servile brat, boy," growled Yukio. "You were trained practically since infancy to do nothing but take orders! You're too _simple_ to be anything but how to be a pawn in everyone else's game!"

"I don't _think_ so, Yukio," said Bankotsu evenly, though through gritted teeth. "I've always known how to kill," he said, tossing his head at the dead guard. "I'll continue to show you exactly how well can!"

Bankotsu shifted his weight, and blazed with fierce speed, advancing toward Yukio, the bolt in his hand poised like a dagger. He struck, and was miraculously blocked by a desperately drawn katana.

Yukio barely managed to bat away the attack with his katana, dropping his crossbow unceremoniously in the process of drawing it. He then countered with a long, fast sweep of his own, bringing his hand that previously held the crossbow to the handle.

Bankotsu backed away from the swipe, and the blade flew past his stomach with a whistling _hwick!_ "Pathetic, menial boy!" Yukio said as he turned the blade over, reached in, and took a long swipe at Bankotsu's head. "There are hundreds of my forces that know how to cast 'Bridle'! You can't face the fact that you'll always be a slave to my training!" Yukio was counting on the fact that eventually, the young man's tolerance of his wounds and the spell cast on him would simply give out, and he'd be free to at least disable him until Soumeikarasu recovered. 'Bridle' was devestating, and it had to be. The person for whom it was fashioned was a devestatingly deadly warrior.

"Your excuse for what you call _training_ did nothing for me! _I _was the one who always knew that I was never meant to be a slave for anyone!" Bankotsu rushed again after leaning far backwards to avoid the swipe to his head. He was quickly attacked, and Yukio's katana rang from the blow it took when blocking it. "I was never your slave! I never was your own personal demon!" With two heavy swiped forward, he added, "I was never _your_, or _anyone's_ trained attack dog! And I will never be!"

"Suit yourself, boy!" After blocking twice again, Yukio cut across a few more times, and caused Bankotsu to back away. Bankotsu lunged forward, though Yukio figured as much that the boy would charge again. He raised his katana and made a long sweep from above, but Bankotsu dodged it by turning his body, and the skin on the surface of his chest could feel the compressed air as Yukio's blade grazed past it with another _hwick!_ "Your ungrateful attitude toward your training will cause me to ensure that Soumeikarasu's control of you is as unenjoyable as possible!"

"There you go, bringing up that training crap again, Yukio!" Bankotsu countered again, aiming right for Yukio's heart, but his attack was even more easily batted away than before.

Yukio smiled, as he easily picked up on the fact that the speed of Bankotsu's attacks were slowing. As much as he loathed to admit it, he figured he'd have certainly been dead by now if the boy hadn't been so weakened already.

He swiped at Bankotsu again. Dodging another high swipe of Yukio's katana, Bankotsu dropped to a crouching position on the ground.

Yukio turned the blade, and made one long last sweeping cut, aiming right at Bankotsu's neck. "If I have to decapitate you a second time, I will do it, you obstinate specter! And you'll end up being nothing more than a waste of my precious time and resources!"

The blade came rushing toward Bankotsu's neck, whistling loudly and leaving a barely perceptible greyish streak in the air.

The blade was just about to slice through Bankotsu's neck, when it hit metal. It vibrated from the impact, and rang loudly.

"You've done nothing more than given me useless busywork!" said Bankotsu, who had blocked the katana with the bolt he held. The cold bolt rested against his neck as he grinned. Yukio tried to pull the blade away from Bankotsu's neck to take another swipe at him. However, Bankotsu easily reached up to his neck, and took hold of it, holding the flat of the blade between his fingers and the meat of his thumb. Yukio grunted, trying to move the blade, but could not.

Leaving no time for Yukio to react further, Bankotsu leaped upward in a flash, and while still holding the blade, drove it through Yukio's right hand. Bankotsu continued to glare into Yukio's eyes, still gripping the bolt tightly. "But my men...my _men_ were the ones to teach me how to _enjoy_ it!"

Yukio was stunned into wide-eyed ineffectiveness by the intense pain.

"I'll thoroughly _enjoy_ having your head roll in your own garden!" said Bankotsu, taking firm hold of the daimyo's right wrist with his left hand, then ripping the bolt out of the daimyo's wrist. "This is for them, and for those who will pay me a fortune for doing it for them! _So die_, Master Yukio!"

Bankotsu pulled the daimyo closer to himself with his left hand, crushing what was left of his wrist. Yukio's own crossbow bolt was then driven though his heart.

Yukio fell backward, his face pale from the terror of meeting his impending death. He gripped the bolt protuding through his chest while he watched Bankotsu walk away.

_It's over for me!_ thought the daimyo, and he fell to a seated position on the ground. Coughing up blood, he closed his eyes, waiting for death to overtake him, and he hung his head low. _Bastard..._

Hearing something approach again, he looked upwards, and saw Bankotsu walking toward him, this time holding his massive weapon in his left hand.

His eyes widened from fright, and his first instinct was to sit up.

Bankotsu reached the expiring daimyo, and casually flipped the banryuu around, spinning it on its axis in frightening ease by using only a few fingertips. The weapon made a deep _whoosh_ as the blade circled. He brought the weapon across himself to his right side.

Before the daimyo could speak another word, the banryuu made a long backhanded sweep to the left, and the daimyo's body fell to the ground, his head following soon after.

Bankotsu, still holding the halberd in the same position, cracked a wry, wicked half-grin. His eyes remained fixed firmly on the decapitated body of Yukio in front of him. The only sounds cutting through the air were the occsional gleeful laughter of the villagers raiding the castle, and the melodic twitters of the various songbirds that had mde their residence in the garden. The similar smell of burning wood permeated the air around the castle.

Breathing through his mouth heavily, Bankotsu began allowing his body to loosen. He barely lowered the halberd, ready to walk upright again, and lift the banryuu casually over his shoulder.

And now, the battle over and done, everything he had so successfully blocked out mercilessly hit him all at once. A loud, tortured cry was torn unconsciously from his body.

His hand refused to hold his weapon any longer, and it fell to the ground as the massive shock of pain stabbed through him. He fell to his knees, then completely forward to the ground. In complete exhaustion from the strain of blocking out the discomfort caused by the awful spell cast on him and the tears in his back, he lowered his head, his arms shaking as they barely held his torso up from the ground.

He heard a shuffling on the ground behind him, and when he had recovered from the shock of the compounded pain hitting him, he lifted his head again. He turned and peered through the sweat running off his soakened hair to see what had caused it.

_She's...awake..._


	32. Chapter 32

Authoress' Notes: I SO do not own Inuyasha or anything in the Inuyasha universe. My original characters are...well...mine.

And again, thanks for your continued reading and support of my stories!

**Wayward Ransom, chapter 32.**

The girl behind him had brought herself up to a sitting position, her legs folded together. She was nervously looking around, seemingly trying to find an explanation for her existence, and the torn ground, destroyed teahouse, and other signs of chaos surrounding her.

Even though the pain was not quite over, Bankotsu had to grin. _Heh. A woman, too..._ He looked more closely, his blurred vision recovering. His grin faded away when he realized who the girl was. _That's..._ His brow lowered. _That **is** her. The daimyo wasn't lying..._ A sudden twinge of embarassment raced through him, and he pinched his mouth together tightly. He recalled all the times she had tried to teach him how to read and write, to no avail. By her presence, Bankotsu suddenly felt like he was knocked down a few rungs on the developmental scale.

When he regained control over himself, Bankotsu rose slowly and painfully from the ground, and began to walk over to her.

The frightened girl turned her head this way and that way, both hands up at her mouth. She sniffed her tears a few times before finding herself enveloped in a dark shadow, and flinched backward, her eyes widened in horror. Not daring to look up at whoever loomed above her, more tears began to stream from her eyes. "P - please don't make me into that bird form again!" She squeezed her eyes shut and shielded her face with a forearm. "Please!"

Bankotsu half-knelt, half-fell down to the ground next to her. He silently gazed down at her, allowing her a moment to realize who was in front of her.

Akiko opened her eyes, disoriented as nothing was happening to her. She sniffed again, and dared to open her eyes, and lower her arm. Leaning backward on one hand, she wiped her cheek with the other, while returning the gaze of the young man in front of her.

_Is...this...? _She leaned forward, then reached up, to Bankotsu's surprise, and parted the fringe of thick, sweat-dampened hair covering his forehead. Shocked at seeing the easily indentifyable, perfectly cross-shaped scar, her eyes widened again. "It's...You're...!"

Bankotsu grinned stupidly as she sweetly drew her hand down along his dark face, then traced his jawline with her fingertips. "Yeah," he said said quietly, desperately trying to ignore the burning sensation her touch to his skin caused. "Long time, no see."

After a brief wave of boyish embarassment, he decided that he was rather pleased at seeing his former teacher in her rather unclothed state. He flicked his eyes up and down, running them all along her, taking full advantage of the fact that this was the first opportunity to see her so since he had known her. He was quick to note her characteristic, unusually long neck. Her unkempt, long, orangeish-brown hair partially hid a slightly pear-shaped body, terminating in almost disproportionately short legs.

Bankotsu laughed inwardly. _Pretty fitting for a woman who transforms into a duck_. Most interestingly, her firm-looking breasts, and her stomach, were covered in what looked like a light, soft-looking layer of pure white down. _Huh...that's pretty interesting!_

He knew nothing could much be done about her until he recovered from his battle, but he had to smile...he would have to remember all this for later!

_Oh, yeah, and she does have the other half of that stone in her body, too, _he thought, turning down his mouth, and briefly taking a look at the corresponding black opal embedded into the skin between her breasts.

Akiko removed her hand from Bankotsu's jawline, to both his relief and disappointment. Completely oblivious to Bankotsu's intense observation of her, she leaned over to see what was behind him. Just like when she saw the guard with the horrible looking spike impaled in his forehead, her face turned green seeing the decapitated body lying on the ground. "That's...that was the daimyo..."

Bankotsu looked back, and gave an arrogantly nonchalant puff of air. "Pffft. Yeah," he said, shrugging his shoulders and turning back to her. He briefly considered whether he should give Akiko his outer jacket to cover herself, in spite of the fact that it was now blood-stained and torn, but he couldn't quite commit himself to a decision.

She looked right into his eyes, but Bankotsu could not understand her flat expression. Reading people was one way he kept himself alive, and he found it quite unsettling when it couldn't be done. "You...killed him..."

Still grinning, Bankotsu looked her up and down again. _Nah,_ he thought, reaching his decision about giving her the jacket.

After the moment of distraction passed, he addressed her comment. "Yeah. Did it in three blows, too," he said with a chuckle.

Bankotsu looked at her puzzled, as her face turned horribly dark. Tears poured from her eyes even more than before. He raised an eyebrow in question. _She...was upset that I killed him?_

With a sudden burst of anger, Akiko's brow furrowed in fury. "You..._you killed him too quickly_!" she said, squeezing her eyes shut again and pounding the ground with a small fist.

Rudely jolted by her sudden change in demeanor, Bankotsu's eyebrows raised in puzzlement.


	33. Chapter 33

Authoress' Notes: I SO do not own Inuyasha or anything in the Inuyasha universe. My original characters are...well...mine.

Thanks for your continued reading of my stories!

**Wayward Ransom, chapter 33.**

Bankotsu was confused at first that Akiko should have suggested a more painful, tortuous end for her former master. However, he began to grow angered and offended by her suggestion. "No. Torture's not my style," was his growled response to her outburst.

Taken aback by his reaction, Akiko turned her face away from him. Realizing her nakedness, she crossed her forearms over her breasts. This caused her fingers to touch the cold stone embedded into her chest. "The stone..." she said, gazing at it as it lie next to her on the ground. After a moment of thought, she rose to her feet and began walking away from Bankotsu.

Clumsily picking up a heavy rock, she ran over to the stone, and raised the rock above her head. "I'll smash this awful thing to pieces!" she cried, ready to throw the rock downwards.

"Stupid woman!" Bankotsu gritted his teeth, bracing his body. In an instant, he grabbed Akiko, spun her around, and brought her down to the ground with him.

The girl's touch on his body, plus landing hard on his back, made him grunt loudly. He wrapped his arms around hers, pinning her arms to her sides as she lay on top of him. "Let me destroy it! I can't believe you don't want that awful thing smashed to pieces!" she cried, loudly protesting his interruption.

"Destroy that pendant, and you'll destroy yourself!" growled Bankotsu angrily.

"I...don't care!" she cried. "And I also...don't believe you!"

Bankotsu's frustration with the girl, and with his pain-racked body, was steadily growing into sheer fury.

She continued to struggle uselessly in his steely grip. "You just wanted to come here and take it for yourself!"

"_Woman...!_"

Bankotsu had had it with her. Making sure he had a strong arm wrapped tightly around her the whole time, thus disabling her arms, he picked up the necklace from the ground, and put it on his neck. He then grabbed the leather strap that had been previously around Akiko's neck when she was in her bird-form, and proceeded to use it to tie her hands together behind her back, to Akiko's utter mortification. He rose to his feet with Akiko squirming in his arms.

After finishing her binding, Bankotsu grabbed her around her waist again. "You're coming along with _me, whether you like it or not_!" he spat, glaring angrily down at her.

Akiko resumed crying loudly, and Bankotsu walk-dragged her over to where his weapon lay on the ground. Holding her by the binding on her wrist, he threw the crossbow over her shoulder, and picked up his own weapon, resting on his own shoulder.

He dragged her with him as he headed toward the woods that surrounded the castle. The sounds of the villagers raiding the castle began to become more distant.

He still had to grin, despite his extreme discomfort.

Because at least now, he wouldn't be alone.

oOoOo...Finis...oOoOo

* * *

More notes: Well, if you've stuck with this story for this long, I might as well tell you that I'm planning an immediate sequel to this story...look out for "Patience of a Sinner"! I desperately need some fluff after all this, goshdarnit. 


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